Even after changing hands few hotel managements manage to reach their original fame and that affects their popular restaurants directly. Not many survive the change and liquidate before the year is out or transform into something totally different. Eros Hotel in Nehru Place has changed hands frequently and what was the famous Park Royal is now Eros. One of its most popular restaurants ‘Empress of China’ has been around for over a decade and has somehow managed to sail through the change beautifully. It still is a very sought after destination for good Chinese meal and claims to serve the best Sichuan dishes in the city. The luxurious elegant ambience of the restaurant entices many patrons who come regularly without fail for their noodle-fix. It is one of the few restaurants left that still maintains an old fashioned outlook of fine dining.
There is no better place than Empress of China for authentic Chinese food in the city. Even after the presence of Indian and Nepalese chefs in the kitchen, the restaurant succeeds to produce delicious and quite authentic Chinese dishes wonderfully. The regulars often like to make a meal out of their dim sums, a section that spoils you for choices. More conventional appetizers features, lamb cumin, wasabi prawn salad, crispy spinach, barbeque pork ribs, deep fried tofu, Szechuan crab wonton, Yunnan spring onion parcel, Empress corn cake and garlic lobster. Main course takes you towards, silver pomfret, Szechuan French beans, clay pot chicken, vegetable lohan noodles, salt baked chicken, Peking duck, wok fried lobster, pan fried lamb rack and braised tofu & broccoli.
Save some appetite for their dessert course. Their exceptional dishes are, fried milk cake with condensed milk, batter fried filled litchi with ice cream, steamed Szechuan chocolate cake, home-made sorbets and crispy date pan cake with ice cream. Empress of China is an expensive place to dine but if you want a backdrop of affluence and luxury then there is no place better. The dining room of the restaurant is unchanged from a decade ago and still shows an old fashioned interior. The wall to wall carpeted room is made up entirely in wood and glass with vintage chandeliers hanging from its pale ceiling. Formal round tables groans under the crystal ware, gleaming under the soft golden light casted by the lamps. The ambience is classy, charming, old fashioned and whimsical.
- The restaurant takes pride in pairing its specialties with selected wines
- It served 'Peking Duck', long before the dish became a menu staple in Delhi and it is still one of the fastest moving dishes
- If you want something that tastes vaguely Sichuan, order the 'Double Fried Pork' or the 'French Beans' with preserved vegetables