Xing Fu Offers Non-Traditional Chinese Food -- Bangkok, Thailand

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Xing Fu, the Novotel Lotus Chinese restaurant is a small, elegant place with a young, creative chef and a large, exceedingly comprehensive menu. Together with a hands-on Food & Beverage Manager, Mr. Andre Courtin, and a good wine list, these disparate elements combine to produce a unique Chinese eating establishment. That's a difficult task in Bangkok, a city that is literally awash in Cantonese-style Chinese restaurants.

While more traditional proponents of Chinese cooking argue that innovation robs the food of its authenticity, some chefs prefer to keep the old, while at the same time experiment with new ways of interpreting the most popular of Chinese dishes. Such is the case at Xing Fu where young Chef Liang from Hong Kong is always ready to experiment.

Although the chef has a large menu of traditional dishes to prepare at any

given time, he also finds the time to push the limits of Chinese cuisine. He has even tried some chocolate dim sum before. What the reaction to that was, is at this point still un­known, but it must have been interesting.

Our own visit produced some new twists on Cantonese food starting with a dish composed of shrimp and kale ina tomato-based sauce. It was a dish that sounds like it would be more at home in an Italian eating establishment, but it worked also within the context of Chinese, with the tomato sauce being light enough and spiced slightly to give it a more well­rounded flavor than most Italian marinaras, with nowhere near the heaviness.

Anyway, it was different and delicious and led us to ka moo yenn, a tasty pork dish, and beef with curry powder which was actually more Indian than Chinese but retained something of the qualities of both the cuisines. Both dishes stayed on the border of Cantonese without actually entering the province.

Scallops with asparagus was more on the side of tradition with large plump scallops and fresh, crispy asparagus providing a real contrast.

Another tomato-based dish was served next that contained shredded chicken and shrimp along with rice, forming almost a sort of porridge. This dish was unlike anything encountered on a Chinese menu before and was hearty and flavorful.

Along with the abovementioned dishes are, of course, many different tra­ditional Chinese dishes that form a very extensive menu. Whole individual sections of the menu, for ex­ample, are de­voted to abalaone, conpoy, sea cucumber, crab, bird's nest and shark fin specialties, so not all is new and innovative.

There's also, as mentioned, a good wine list including California, Australian and French bottles, among others.

So come for the new or the old, but try Xing Fu and see how a number of different elements can combine to produce a stimulating meal.