BEIJING BLUES - THE LATEST ADDITION TO CHENNAI'S FOODSCAPE

Beijing Blues is the latest addition to Chennai’s burgeoning foodscape. It is part of the Red Hot Chilli Pepper Hospitality Services group, which has branches in Kolkatta and Mumbai under the same name.

Five spice chicken, Lattmaika, Crispy chilly baby corn, Crab meat soup, Spicy corn soup (with veg and non-veg options), Fish and chilly oyster sauce are some of the high points of the menu at Beijing Blues. The décor here is Euro-Chinese and the predominant colour used is dark blue.

The average cost of a meal for two is Rs 600/- for two during dinner and Rs 400/- for lunch. They have recently introduced the executive lunch, which has proven to be hugely popular.

We speak to Probashish Sanyal, General Manager, Beijing Blues about the restaurant.

Beijing Blues is basically a joint venture between Sharmila Bajoria of the Vastrini boutique here in Chennai and the Red Hot Chilli Pepper Hospitality Services group. Red Hot Chilli Pepper was originally started in Kolkatta by four friends – Manas Borthakore, Bharat Dhamala, Asim Mewar and Nilabothakore. Bharat is the chef and the others take care of management related issues. It became very popular in Kolkatta. Sharmila, who travels regularly to Kolkatta used to frequent Red Hot Chilli Pepper. She liked the food there and it was her idea to bring Beijing Blues to Chennai.

Authentic Chinese cuisine does not have that much of gravy as seen in the regular Chinese fares in Chennai. Also Chinese as a cuisine is very vast and the degree of authenticity finally depends upon the chef. Now the chef at the Taj is a Chinese, he comes here regularly and he says he likes the food. Also many hoteliers come to Beijing Blues. Basically Indians learn from the Chinese here in India and try to inculcate as much authenticity as possible. The menu is the brainchild of Bharat Dhamala, who is one of the Directors and has learnt from a Chinese chef. He comes here regularly to give us the recipes.

When you are speaking about authenticity, how easily are the ingredients available and where are they available?

The perishables we buy from Chennai, they are pretty easily available. But the fish and prawn, we get from Kolkatta, because the fresh water prawn there has a distinct taste. We make the other ingredients like the sauces in-house.  Chennai is around 30% more expensive than Kolkatta. And our costing has gone slightly awry because of that.

To be very honest…not much really. There is no word called gravy in Chinese cuisine, there are only sauces. We serve Sezhwan and Canton here. And Sezhwan is very spicy. People come in and say they like their food really spicy. When we tell them Sezhwan is too spicy, they say no we want it spicy. Only when they have the food, they realise how spicy it really is. So we try and tone down the spices.

Middle level executives and upwards and of course families. We try to keep it slightly exclusive. Advance tele-reservation is a must.

What has the response been like so far?

We are full most of the time and a  lot of times people do go back for not getting a table. 70% of our clients are repeat customers and we also have a fairly large number of expats coming in.

Our cuisine and the ingredients that we use. Our USP certainly is the fresh water fish and prawns that we source from Kolkatta. Also our customers can expect a lot more from us in the future. We intend to bring in a lot of value addition, like the fashion show that we held recently... it was a huge success. We are planning to have more of such events every month. I believe that people will come to us not only for the quality of food that we offer, but also for the fact that we propose to make dining a pleasurable experience. Otherwise there are so many Chinese joints that they can choose from…it is not only what you give, but how you give it can make all the difference.

Address: #40, Radhakrishnan Salai, Chennai 600 004.
Phone: 811 0240
Tele-fax: 811 0243