Executive Chef, Zaw Wate, shows of his excellent Chinese cooking. Pic: Christopher Davy

CATCHING the lift to the 12th floor restaurant of Hotel Yangon may seem to some like a bit of a slog, but the views at the top are well worth the extra effort. The décor of the restaurant is fairly typical of most Chinese restaurants — sparse decoration, large round tables with high backed chairs — altogether not particularly inspiring though impeccably clean.

But we weren’t there to sample the views or the décor but one of the Chinese banquet menus. Executive Chef, Zaw Wate, has spent time crafting menus that cater to a wide variety of palates, offering carefully balanced menus sure to satisfy both native Chinese and those who may be less familiar with Chinese food such as local Yangonites and foreign tourists.

Our foray into the menu starts with a light jelly fish salad, delicately seasoned and slightly spicy. Winter melon soup with pork spare ribs followed. The soup was warm and wholesome and certainly ideal for the low season. Zaw Wate, a chef of 16 years has worked in Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai and China, picking up a variety of well-known cuisines on the way, including Italian, French and Japanese, as well as Chinese. Whilst sauce ingredients are imported from such places as China, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, all other ingred-ients are bought locally, guaranteeing the menus a seasonal quality.

Having wetted our appetites it was now time to start on the main dishes. First, the clay pot eggplant, made of thick strips of eggplant and heavily spiced in a Sichuan sauce laced with chillies. For those who like their food spicy this dish is bound to be a winner although the Sichuanese dish may not appeal to everybody’s tastes given its spiciness.

Perhaps more likely to appeal to most is the sizzling beef — deliciously thin strips of beef with large chunks of green pepper and onion in a dark sauce. The thinness of the beef really makes this dish a success as the meat falls apart in your mouth. It’s rare to eat beef like this as all too often it is thick-cut, chewy and generally lacking in flavour.

Whilst Zaw Wate has been careful to include a few famous spicy dishes in the menus, mostly from Sichuan, the majority of the dishes are based on food from Guangdong province. As such, the dishes are not too hot and are more likely to appeal to the wider clientele the restaurant is trying to attract.

After trying the braised siew pak choi with shitake mushrooms in oyster sauce, we moved onto the highlight of the meal — a steamed fresh grouper fish with soy sauce. The grouper fish is not strongly flavoured so the light steaming helps to retain its flavour, while the garnish of ginger, carrot and spring onion provide an extra kick. We finish the meal with seafood fried rice.

With an unimpeded view of much of the Yangon cityscape and a new array of tasty menus to lure people in, Hotel Yangon is certainly an excellent place to eat dinner. The sheer variety of Chinese dishes available ensures that there will be something to meet everybody’s tastes whether you like your Chinese food sweet, spicy or sour.