Spicy C

We wanted a relatively quick meal before heading off to J's birthday party. So my friend M suggested i-chin. She had been there last week and loved it and wanted to go back. And I'm always a fan of asian fusion, so I was totally amenable.

M had very set ideas on food quantity – she had skipped lunch (I had had lunch, though some might not consider a bag of potato chips and a bunch of cookies lunch, I hadn’t been hungry) and so wanted to make sure that we ordered enough. So she suggested appetizers, soup and main dishes, but said that she was fine with pretty much any actual dish choice.

When I saw the appetizer list, I was drawn to the cauliflower. I really wanted the cauliflower. M was indeed totally flexible, so we got that as well as the wontons. The cauliflower was even better than I had imagined. Better than I could have imagined. It was awesome!! Really great!! It was lightly fried (I think) with onions and chilies - plus some black pepper. The flavor was somehow delicate and strong - very well balanced. It tasted so good, so very, very good. I want to run right out now and get more. Really. The wontons (we ate 2 before I remembered to take the photo, so while not a huge portion size, it's not as tiny as it looks) were also nice, though not quite the transformative experience of the cauliflower (and cauliflower is so good for you - all that vitamin C, great to have especially in this cold and flu season).



I didn’t finish all of my soup, though it had a really nice, spicy flavor (Apparently, I really was full from my ‘lunch’) and I wanted to enjoy the rest of the meal.

For our main course, we had gotten the green curry tiger prawns (M had had it before and was dying to have it again) and the Sichuan chicken (I had also been intrigued by the Szechwan lamb, but M isn’t a huge lamb fan, … so I have to go back and try the lamb another time). M described the flavor of the prawns as green – which I think was the cilantro, and which was really fresh. I don't have a better word than green to describe the flavor. The chicken was nice as well, a little spicy in a spicy, rich sauce.

We didn’t get dessert - both because we were pretty full, but also, to be honest, none of the choices grabbed me (I had been hoping for something Pandan, we had that at a noodle place a couple of months ago, and it is one of my very favorite flavors, it just doesn’t show up on the menu very often). But, even without the dessert though, this place is worth checking out – good, solid, spicy (harder to get good, spicy food than one might imagine) asian fusion right in midtown.