Mystery guest at Kylin Chinese Restaurant

Dubby Bhagat

KATHMANDU: It was my mystery guest who took over writing of this article for me because he felt I couldn’t ask questions, taste and write at the same time.

The Kylin is a mythical beast from China, one of Four Divine Creatures and second in importance only to the dragon. It is believed that it was the Kylin that brought the great sage Confucius, who was very particular about the look of his food much to the annoyance of his wife. To this day the Kylin is on various ornaments and is the guardian of an imperial mausoleum in Qixia Town of Nanjing.

My old friends William Pan and his wife Yang, who own the Chinese Beijing Hotel and the Chinese Cate Town restaurant, talked about Kylin as being “a sort of a stupa”.

Said Pan, “Here we serve new Sichuan food.” And my guest wrote, “The emphasis is on Chinese Nouvelle cuisine, not traditional cuisine though focus is still on Sichuan food.”

As if to prove the point, Pan was working on eye appealing food photographs, which is one part of Nouvelle Cuisine but the helpings were larger than the now passé Nouvelle Cuisine.

Norbu Sherpa, who worked in China, brought us a finely sliced pork wrapped around five coloured vegetables such as carrots, cucumber and others in a hot chilli pepper and red vinegar sauce. The result was a crunchy, spicy extraordinarily delicious concoction.

The Chef Huang Gua Ping has been cooking for 16 years and comes from Sichuan and has adapted ancient recipes to suit modern demands. He has succeeded for example a great coming together of China and India through the Indian white steamed ocean fish with Chinese chillies in salt and white vinegar floating in soy sauce. It was soft and possessed of the most unusual taste going from calm to spicy from bite to bite. Kylin is the only restaurant to import Indian fish. My mystery guest and I wondered why. As if to cement Sino-India relationships Pan and Yang’s son Pa Han Chin wants to study computers in India.

Next in the feast this time served by Inder Kumar, a Rai from Dhankuta, were tofu skins and my mystery guest wrote, “The tofu skins were slightly tougher than the normal tofu and were served with pakchoi. You had a dish that is chewy, crunchy and never before tasted.”

There were peanuts in soy sauce as a sort of tasty pause to the fish and all that had gone before. The peanuts were boiled in water with salt and my mystery guest wrote, “They were just a refreshing change.”

Then we plunged into an unusual creation, prawns fried with cashew nuts, carrots and cucumber and Chinese chillies the soft of the prawn, the crunch of the cashew added to the carrots, cucumber and Chinese chillies made one want to eat more but then Kylin served what my mystery guest wrote, “Chicken fried with dried chillies from Nepal and a sauce that combines wine and soy. The chicken was finely diced and marinated. The taste of the fire tickled the taste buds.”

The Kylin restaurant is on the same street as the Utsey and Kilroy’s — you swing right from the Beijing Hotel restaurant (Jyatha) into Thamel and it’s a walk down the road and then right on the first floor.

Today if something goes wrong at Chinese Cate restaurant (as it once did), William Pan and Yang recommend you go to Kylin while they put things right. Call Pan or Yang at 9851000088 and 9808124708, or

at 4251386/4252201 at the Beijing

Hotel restaurant.