Ritika Arora samples a Sicilian duck preparation accompanied with Cantonese pickled cucumber soup at an ongoing festival in the Capital

It’s Friday night and all you want to do is to treat yourself with a luscious Italian platter. But the trouble comes when the family settles down for Chinese. Then comes ChaoBella to your rescue. This restaurant at Crowne Plaza, Okhla, stands for Chao (Chinese) and Bella (Italian) both and provides authentic, not to mention absolutely, scrumptious preparations from the two countries. Precisely for those wanting to relish hakka noodles with red sauce lasagna under the same roof.

Although the two cuisines remain a speciality of this restaurant, their ongoing food promotion has popular hand-picked recipes from the Sicilian and Cantonese regions. Chefs Sam Wong and Amit Waha have carefully planned a menu keeping both vegetarians and non-veg dishes in mind.

The Sicilian cuisine, Waha says, also boasts flavours of Spain, Arab and Greek. “Much of the island’s food that encourages the use of fresh vegetables like tomatoes and varieties of seafood, including fish, prawns, lobsters and ducks. Sicilian dishes are incomplete without the common herbs and ingredients like pepper, apricots, sugar,  sweet melons, raisins, cloves, pine nuts and cinnamon to name a few,” he says.

Talking about the authentic flavours of China, Wong adds, “Cantonese is one of the eight famous cuisines of China. Besides pork, beef and chicken, the cuisine also incorporates almost all edible meats, including organ meats, chicken feet, duck tongue and seafood. Lamb and goat is very rarely eaten. Since this cuisine belongs to a tropical region, people witness heavy rainfall throughout the year. That’s why people always prefer steamed and deep-fried food which contains ingredients and herbs like spring onions, sugar, salt, soy sauce, rice wine, corn starch, vinegar, scallion oil and sesame oil, ginger, chilli peppers etc.”

We begin our meal with a cold Sicilian appetiser, Pate di Figato di Pollo, which was not very spicy and prepared with red wine. “It’s a popular dish and prepared with chicken liver paste called pate in Italy. We place it on a round thin crust garlic bread and garnish it with black olives and coriander leaves. Only the pate takes a lot of time because we have to soak chicken liver pate in raw milk overnight,” explained Waha.

Next come Sicilian and Cantonese soups — Zuppa di Fagioli Cannelloni Con Parmigiano (cannelloni bean soup with parmesan) and Cilantro Cucumber Pickled Broth (Exotic pickled cucumber with cilantro) respectively. Of the two varieties, the Cantonese soup emerges as a clear winner. It is little spicy and peppery and the presence of cucumber pickle makes it what most soups fail to be: very appetising. Cilantro, a kind of herb provides it a distinct flavour.

Both cuisines are incomplete without fresh salads, we are told. So Wong introduces us to two different scrumptious frozen salads — Tuna Masculine and Tomato Mozzarella. Chopped tuna (fish) salad which is served with various herbs, cherries and olives is another must-try. It's tangy, juicy and peppery. This salad helps in curing severe joints pain. The Tomato Mozzarella salad is best for vegetarians. “We remove the outer skin of tomatoes carefully and then cut and prepare them with mozzarella cheese. Since tomatoes are commonly used in Sicilian dishes, it's one of the very popular salads,” informs Waha.

It’s now time for heavy main course dishes and Wong serves a Cantonese preparation called Chicken in X.O Sauce — which, was more like desi chilli chicken, but was less spicy. The dish is accompanied with exotic Jasmine rice. In the Italian section, we opt for Siciliana Confit d Anatra con Gelatin Balsamico which is basically a Sicilian duck preparation garnished with jelly. The duck is tender and appropriately cooked.

Just when we are savouring the last-minute flavours of the just-finished meal, desserts come our way and, as we realise later, completely steal the show from the long-stirred gravies. A platter comprising vanilla ice-cream, Cassata Siciliana— a honey sponge cake layered with black currant ice-cream make way on the table. We end our food journey with Cantonese dessert Cold Banana Hun Kwee — a banana wrapped in banana leaf with vanilla flavour. The festival is on till September 11.

Ratings 9/10

Meal for two Rs 2,000-3,000