Tuesday, 13 August 2013 00:00
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As the appetite for dining out grows with new restaurants being introduced, HSBC Premier customers will have the exclusive privilege to enjoy ‘Cardholder Dines Free’ for the first time at Tsing Tao and Kinnaree restaurants, the latest additions at the Racecourse premises and Colombo Fort Dutch Hospital. Cardholders are invited to savour authentic Chinese and Thai until 18 August 2013, entitling them to a special dining experience, amidst a complimentary ambiance at both restaurants.
Tsing Tao at the Colombo Racecourse offers diners a choice of authentic Chinese Seafood cuisine. Here, HSBC Premier Cardholders can experience a gourmet Chinese dining experience, as if in Beijing. Tsing Tao is a franchise of Loon Tao the popular beach front restaurant in Mount Lavinia. The fitting name Tsing Tao is a combination of two port cities; Qing Dao and Colombo, and has synergies with both restaurants.
The restaurant promises diners nothing short of the best gourmet Chinese cuisine. All non-perishable ingredients, even rice and noodles, are handpicked and imported from China. In order to comply with the restaurants motto of ‘eat fresh’ all seafood is sourced on a daily basis, while all meat (except imported) is non-frozen and sourced every other day to ensure quality and freshness and vegetables are mostly organic. This has also earned the restaurant the ‘Class A’ certificate in food safety by the Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka.
The restaurant’s menu comprises appetizing starters, scrumptious mains, a choice of superb desserts and varieties of flavoured tea and espressos along with an extensive beverage menu of refreshing mocktails, fruity juices and serene cocktails. Some of the favoured starters are crab meat balls, black fungus in hot chillie sauce, spring rolls and crispy brown crab meat balls. There is also a wide range of clear and thick soups made with authentic Chinese ingredients directly imported from Shanghai.
Popular main dishes are the whole Garupa fish steamed and embedded in Chinese soy sauce, the Hong Kong-style spicy chicken, kankun with salted shrimp sauce, Szechwan-style prawns, hot butter cuttle fish and veggie dishes such as bean curd and kankun, sizzling eggplant and much more. Tsing Tao also serves the famous ‘Peking duck’ available on prior notice.
A specialty dish created by Executive Chef Huasheng Mo of Guangdong in China is the deep fried egg in sweet and sour sauce, a signature dish from his native province in China.
HSBC Premier Customers will also have the opportunity to enjoy dim sum which is soon to be added onto the menu. Dim sum Chef Xianchun Meng from Beijing will be serving all his favourite dim sum from Monday to Friday during lunch time.
For Colombo’s corporate elite who value one thing more than anything else, their time, Tsing Tao offers a more casual dining experience with ‘Power Lunches’ that sees many corporates, diplomats and casual diners from Monday through Friday.
Each week offers a variation with the inclusion of soup, meat and seafood items, vegetarian dishes, a choice of rice or noodles and dessert, complimented with Jasmine tea or fresh coffee all for the price of Rs. 1750 (excluding taxes).
What sets Tsing Tao apart from any other restaurant is the level of dining. As dining is an experience, Tsing Tao offers diners four different dining areas, each offering a captivating view of the city and its surroundings, with entertaining live folk music every day from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. If you are one after food, service and atmosphere Tsing Tao is the ideal location opened for dining between 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during lunch and 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. for dinner, 365 days of the year. Reservations can be made via 0112 69 89 89 or www.tsingtao.lk.
Aimed at urban diners, ‘Kinnaree’ is located at the new wing of the Dutch Hospital a franchise of Siam House that has been serving authentic Thai cuisine for over 20 years. The restaurant’s menu is made up of a variety of Thai dishes with an innovative blend of Thai ingredients. Signature dishes such as som tum (Papaya Salad), tom yum koong (spicy prawn soup) and seafood pad Thai noodles (flat rice noodles with seafood) remain the most popular.
Diners can also enjoy innovations like pizza with red curry, chicken and cheese, sticky rice burger with chicken/pork, burgers and submarines with green curry or red curry fillings and rotti with massaman curry, all made to special Thai flavours.
Food is prepared in an open kitchen, where diners can look on as food is being prepared by consultant Chef Chermakwarn Bunnag from Thailand, who has worked in the royal Thai Palace for many years.
The restaurant’s hospitable ambience is created around the lotus flower which gestures ‘welcome’. The name ‘Kinnaree’ denotes the symbolic statue of a young woman (half human and half bird) wearing an angel-like costume that is seen in most parts of Thailand, holding a lotus flower in her right hand.
The restaurant is open from 11:00 a.m. till 11:00 p.m. and can be reached through the Dutch Hospital or from Chatham Street. For reservations, HSBC Premier customers can call 011 2 320 544.
