Indigo: Swanky Asian Food at First Mall

Restaurants

First Indigo

- 22/11/2012

Indigo: Swanky Asian Food at First Mall

First Mall, 35 El Giza St.
International
0235700121

reviewed by

Jessica Noble

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Dressed up to the nines, we sauntered through the First Mall to Indigo; a place legendary for its Asian cuisine and urbane dining experience. After exiting the sterile, white shopping mall through the restaurant’s glass doors, the dimmed lights and water running down the slate coloured, textured walls gave an instant feeling of Zen.

The waiter led us past a large bar and around the corner into the widespread dining area. The deep, warm colours and wooden sculptures give off a Buddhist vibe and encourages the need to sink into the low, velvet sofas available. A raised seating area is surrounded by pinned back curtains to bolster the feeling of privacy, and the stunning views of the Nile create a romantic and enchanting atmosphere.

Before long, the menus arrived. We
observed how extensive the drinks menu was; they offer a range of spirits,
cocktails and a list of champagnes – the most expensive, Dom Perignon was
priced at an extortionate 6800LE. Indigo also offers a selection of non-alcoholic
cocktails such as the Cosmo and the Fruity Good (32LE each). Both of these were thick,
fresh and unimaginably tasty, with little bits of fruit in each them.

We mulled over Indigo’s adventurous
selection of food and braced ourselves for our starter of dragon balls (65LE);
deep fried shrimp balls with sweet chilli sauce. For mains, we chose an all
time Chinese favourite; crispy duck pancakes with hoisin sauce (90LE) and stir
fried beef with spring onion and black pepper sauce (80LE). The mains come as
they are, with no extras, so we also ordered vegetable rice (18LE) and
vegetable rice noodles with bok choy and oyster sauce (50LE).

Before our starter, we were presented with one amuse bouche
each, a single spring roll with a perfectly blended chicken filling and spicy
chilli sauce. Although the spice was pretty intense, the crispy roll itself was
delicious and left us anticipating our next courses.

Even better than the taster – and possibly the star of the
show – the dragon balls were brilliantly presented and turned out to be small,
crispy balls of heaven. Our only criticism would be that they were so delicate
it was hard to dip them into the sweet chilli sauce without them falling apart.

The mains arrived and were slightly disappointing after such delectable starters. The crispy duck, although fresh and probably much better quality than the kind we’re used to, wasn’t crispy or shredded and the pancakes were slightly doughy. Also, the rice noodles were too fishy for our taste due to the oyster sauce.

Contrarily, the stir fried beef was tender and sticky from its rich sauce and much more satisfying, with the moist, vegetable rice making an excellent side dish.

For dessert we indulged in a banana delight (38LE) which came after a lengthy wait. The bananas were golden and warm, served with a very rich and bitter dark chocolate sauce. Luckily, we are fans of both warm banana and dark chocolate; otherwise we would have been highly upset at the risky choice of dark, not milk chocolate.

Throughout the meal, the service was attentive and impeccable and the waiters managed to inconspicuously keep our water topped up. Although this place is pricey, some of the dishes and fruity concoctions are definitely worth the money and the suave atmosphere is likely to be enough to keep people going back for more.