The Tastes of Life...Chow

Entrance to Chow

To celebrate the completion of mid-year performance assessments, I had dinner with my fellow violist (literally my fellow - as in boy...although regarding the viola side of things, he's going to be a conductor!) at Chow. Chow is a restaurant that advertises itself as "Fresh Asian", as seen in my last A-Muse post. And true to the marketing, there wasn't a stale Asian in sight...the food was pretty fresh too (ha, ha). 

The dishes at Chow are small but flavorful to the extreme, so even if you don't leave with a completely full stomach, you will leave with a completely satisfied palate! We'd been to Chow once before and had experienced very unique flavor combinations, sometimes even a bit overdone for some tastes - I remember ordering a prawn-noodle salad (that doesn't seem to be on the current menu) that was so strongly flavored with fresh herbs that I had trouble finishing it...but no such difficulties this time around!

 Below is a photo of four of the five main dishes we ordered - we had six total (Monday being 2 for 1 night) with one being our dessert. As you can see, there are maybe five morsels of each of the selections, each dish coming with its own unique sauce. The menu has categories for steamed, fresh, grilled, and fried dishes, with curries, noodles, and sides, plus desserts. We ordered (from top going clockwise) the coconut prawn dumplings (steamed), Malaysian style prime angus beef satay (grilled), banana leaf wrapped tarakihi with coconut sauce (steamed), and the rib of beef marinated in coconut cream, lemongrass, ginger, kaffir lime, and chili (grilled). 

We also had the salmon parcels with spinach and cashew pesto (steamed), which are currently pictured on their website: http://www.chow.co.nz/food.

The satay sauce was especially good, not very thick, with a nice spiced flavor and chopped peanuts mixed in. Also the coconut prawn dumplings stood out in the flavor department. If you are a fan of dumplings, definitely try these! Both the tarakihi and salmon were cooked to flakey perfection, the salmon wrapped in something similar to the dumpling wrappers and the tarakihi in the pictured (non-edible) banana leaves. And the beef, even without the sauces, was not dry at all. For all the dishes we had sauce to spare and weren't left wanting more. Chow is definitely a place where you'll need a few extra napkins to help get you through all the saucy goodness (especially if you're a bit messy). 

For dessert we had the dark chocolate brownie "spiced with lemon grass and fresh ginger, served with vanilla ice cream." (Regrettably not pictured). Deceptively simple in appearance, this turned out to be exceptionally delicious - the brownie was moist, dense, and fudgey while having a crunchy chocolate edge on one side, and the ice cream tasted homemade, thick and creamy (with the flavor of an egg-based custard ice cream) and slightly ice-y, which wasn't unpleasant at all but added a nice burst of cold texture to the smoothness. The lemon grass and ginger sauce was drizzled all over both, and added a great exotic flavor to the dessert - it's definitely worth ordering again. Maybe we'll head back for 2 for 1 cocktails on Wednesday or Saturday, and order the brownie again, and get a photograph next time! Chow and The Library seem to be owned by the same company, and the high standards of food and beverage quality (and for a reasonable price, especially with their deals) definitely shine through in both places. 

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