A long, long time ago there was a famous Chinese Restaurant in Colaba called Fredericks. Unfortunately that burnt down and  a new one called LING’s PAVILLION came up in its place. Situated in the by lane of Colaba behind the Taj and Regal Cinema, this restaurant  was very popular at one time among the high and mighty of Mumbai especially since it was rumoured that Baba Ling the owner of the restaurant was best buddies with Randhir Kapoor who could be spotted here occasionally. But that was before the mushrooming of several good Chinese eateries all over town and Ling’s soon fell off the favourite Mumbai restaurant list.

But last night we had a chance to re-visit the place and I wondered why we had stopped going there in the first place.

Unlike the China Garden which tells you that has a dress code and a strict ban on children below a certain age and strict times of working, Ling’s has no such restrictions. Once it opens at 11.30 in the morning , it stays open all the way through till 11.30 at night. Children are welcome and infact the fish in the pools provide them with a welcome diversion. And there are no long waiting lists to deal with!

We walked in to an empty restaurant at around 7.30 and were led to a table upstairs near the bar. There is always a faint musty smell in this restaurant – which is more pronounced upstairs but perhaps the other tables downstairs were reserved hence we were taken up. Within minutes of being seated, the order for drinks and starters were taken with helpful suggestions from the Maitre de. The boys wanted fish fingers and the rest of us had sui mai and spring rolls. Bassa seems to be the flavour of the day because the fish fingers were made with Bassa unlike the Ghol fish of yore. But I’m not complaining. The fish fingers were well crumbed and just melted in your mouth. And with the accompanying sweet sauce was simply out of this world. We ordered two kinds of Sui Mai – prawn and chicken. Both were passable. I don’t know why Indian chinese restaurants can’t get a translucent milky white covering like their counterparts in mainland China. But at any rate this is a better place for dim sum than China Garden which seems to permanently have its steamer under repair!

For our main course we ordered a passable chicken fried rice, average chicken noodles and a great fish in mongolian sauce. For the vegetarians we had veg spring rolls (ok) ,hakka noodles which in other places is known as Vhow Mein and a stri fried vegetables consisting of shitake mushroom, bean curd and pak choy. The greens were crisp and the fish excellent and over all the dining experience is far better than China Garden. Would I go there again? Definitely. The service was good, the portions generous and over all it was value for money.

p.s. the photo was taken from burrp.com