Pan-Asian in the Theater District

bluechili
Originally uploaded by lools.

Despite the fact that it was snowing pretty hard on Thursday night, I took the 1/9 subway to 50th street to meet my college buddy, Uzra, who was in town from Arizona. She suggested we meet at this trendy Pan-Asian place that was right across her hotel.

bluechili's striking white interiors made us feel like we hadn't left the snow at all but Uz and I soon warmed up after a tiki tiki (their version of raspberry martini) and lycheetini respectively. I hadn't seen her in months so it was lovely to catch up finally. Uz had been travelling quite a bit as well so we exchanged lots of away-from-home stories. We chatted away while simultaenously admiring the beautiful people and the wonderfully upbeat fusion music.

The diverse menu of pan asian dishes had us debating long and hard on what we were in a mood for - should we stick with sushi that was being prepared across the bar from where we sat or should we be adventurous and choose something Thai or Singaporean instead? The crispy mussels crepe garlic as an apppetizer sounded intriguing as did the spciy pad thai as an entree. Being fond of Japanese food though, we both opted for simple sushi rolls which turned out to be fresh and delicious.

Dessert was tasting fried icecream, an unusual sweet indulgence which was a first for me. We had three scoops of icecream - green tea, vanilla and red bean - that had been dropped into a frying pan and were covered in fried batter. Sounds yucky but it was quite delicious. The softness and sweetness of the icecream was fabulously offset by the crispiness of the outer layer. The green tea flavour was by far the nicest of the three. Every night they vary the icecream in true tasting menu fashion.

Try bluchili when you're in a mood for some experimentation and want a fun, trendy Asian experience.

bluechili
251 W 51st Street
New York, New York
212-246-3330