Dimsum festival at Five Sen5es – The Westin, Velachery

Where	Five Sen5es, The Westin
Occasion	‘All You Can Eat Dimsums’ Festival
Duration	March 21st – April 3rd, 2016
Restaurant Timing	7 PM – 11 PM
Price	Vegetarian – INR 1000+tax Non-Vegetarian – INR 1499+tax

The erstwhile Pan Asian restaurant of Westin – EEST is now revamped and renamed to Five Sen5es. While the former had an elaborate confusing menu consisting of too many Pan Asian delicacies, Five Sen5es concentrates more on the Chinese cuisine. It does have a few dishes from other Pan Asian cuisine too.

About the Festival

‘All you can eat Dimsums’ is a part of The Art Of Chinese Pampering that is being hosted by Westin. For the festival, they have a special set menu where they offer free flow of Jasmine tea, a veg soup, 5 veg and 5 non-veg dimsums, 2 desserts and one ice cream. Everything UNLIMITED. Oh yes, you heard me right! You can eat whatever you want (from the set menu ofcourse), all you want. All the dimsums are different. Also, they have two different sets of menu for week I and week II. Priced at INR 1499+tax, I wouldn’t say it’s a steal for all but if you’re a dimsum lover, you mustn’t miss this.
Now for some G.K – In China, dimsums don’t just mean Momos Only. Dimsums means snacks, something you can munch all day.

Their menu for both the weeks. Click on the pic to view the enlarged version.

Ambiance

Usually my reviews have Location & Ambiance together but obviously, who doesn’t know where Westin is?
Located at Level 1 of Westin, is this classy restaurant. Very nicely done interiors with a lot of Chinese touch like Chinese scriptures on one side of the wall, an open rack filled with laughing buddha idols, a dragon wall art. What I loved the most about the ambiance is a circular caged style seating arrangement right at the centre of the restaurant. And also the lanterns of different patterns and colors hanging from the roof providing just enough light. Neither too bright nor too dim. And an open kitchen! You get a very Chinese-y feeling which adds up to your experience.

Dimsums and other dishes

Drinks

• Jasmine Tea : As I mentioned, you get a free flow of Jasmine Tea, which is supposedly an essential part of Chinese dining and here, they don’t let your cup be empty for long. Tea is re-filled at regular intervals. The tea that’s served here is very mildly flavored and light. You can keep having it.
• Mocktail : I wanted to have something cool so decided to order a mocktail from their regular A La Carte menu but they suggested me a mango and banana based drink (off the menu) and I went for it. It was lovely!
  Others had Virgin Mojito, Sourtail and AppleJul mocktails.

Accompaniments

Kimchi Salad and Fried wanton Sheets with Hot garlic sauce, Yum Sauce (made with fish oil) and Tamarind sauce. These are served complimentary to every guests. The perfect munch-ons while you wait for your food to arrive.
Kimchi was bland while the wanton sheets were yummy. Sheets were sweet and the sauces complimented it just right!
They also had soya sauce and chilli vinaigrette placed on the table.

Soup of the day

The soup for this dimsum festival is always a veg soup which keep changing each day. Same soup doesn’t get repeated! We had a Vegetarian Noodle Soup with a lot of veggies in it. The soup had a smokey flavor, tasted good with all the crunchy veggies!

‘All You Can Eat – Dimsums’

Now for the dimsums, we were served 5 veg and 5 non-veg diferrent varieties of dimsums. And as I said, dimsums are not just momos. They were served with two types of sauces: Sichuan chilli paste and Honey ginger. Both went well with the dimsums.

• Veg Dimsums
  • Taro Dumplings: Deep fried dumplings stuffed with mushrooms, made in sesame oil. I liked.
    

    

    
  • Asparagus and black fungus: Thin flour skin steamed dimsums stuffed with asparagus, black fungus, spinach puree and corn.
    

    

    
  • Pan fried vegetable and chive dumpling: Seasonal vegetables wrapped in thick skin flour dough and pan fried. Lovely flavors. Favorite veg dimsum.
    

    
  • Turnip cake: Long turnip slices fried in rice flour and garnished with fried garlic. Felt bland.
    

    
• Non-Veg Dimsums
  • Braised chicken feet : Tender chicken feed cooked in Soya sauce and Shaoxing wine. For a person who never had chicken feet, it did freak me out. But I did try a bite. Very tender. Sauce was great!
    

    
  • Steamed Lamb Dumpling: Softest chunks of lamb balls cooked in Black vinegar and Sichuan pepper corn. This was easily the BEST dish of the meal. Heavenly!
    

    
  • Assorted dimsum basket: This had three variants of dimsums – Shu Mai (crab meat & fish dimsums), Chicken Baoji (made of fine flour, yeast & chicken) and Tenderloin & mushroom dumplings. Third one was my fav among these.
    

    

Main Course

This is off the Dimsum set menu. One actually doesn’t need to have any main course after having so many dimsums, that too unlimited. It’s a lot of food. The Chef wanted us to try some of their signature dishes and hence.

• Hot Basil fried Rice: We had the veg variants. Sticky Jasmine rice tossed in a lot of veggies. Super aromatic and yummy to the core. Once you have this rice you will not want to have normal white rice at all.
• Vegetables in Chilli garlic sauce: A lot of crunchy veggies tossed in chilli garlic sauce. Chilli garlic sauce is always my favorite. This one was very light and went really well with the rice.
• Kung pao Chicken: Tender chicken chunks cooked in dark soya sauce and sesame oil with a lot of roasted cashewnuts. Delectable.

Desserts

• Mango Sago Pudding: Chinese variant of Sabudana kheer made in coconut cream with mango jelly chunks in it. Kheer being moderately sweet and jelly being sweeter, was a perfect match. Excellent.
• Pumpkin Pudding: Pumpkin puree cooked in coconut cream. Tasted a lot like dal halwa. It was less sweet with a very creamy texture. Yummy.

The authentic Chinese food is very light and healthy with usage of less spices. Loved the fact that in Five Sen5es they have tried retaining the same in all their dishes, that too keeping Indian palate in mind. Even a normal eater can eat a lot here. Overall, if you’re a Chinese food lover, esp. Dimsums, don’t let go off this offer.
Bummer: MANCHURIAN is NOT a Chinese delicacy. We have been cheated all our life!

Address: The Westin Chennai Velachery, 154, Velachery Main Road, Velachery, Chennai
Phone: 044 6633 3777 / 044 33011782

Hog On! 😀