Chedi was bigger in Helsinki than in Tallinn

Chedi, a restaurant offering modern Chinese cuisine continues to introduce restaurants with an interesting Asian cuisine in Tallinn and to present itself abroad. It recently partnered up with the uber-popular restaurant Farang in Helsinki.

Guest dinners are interesting for restaurant goers but very hard for cooks. Cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen and serving food on unfamiliar dishes deprives the taste and appearance of the food of the nuances that the restaurant is respected for.

Leaving your familiar surroundings poses a risk, temptation and change all at the same time.

While the restaurant is still empty, cooks are busy at work in the kitchen.

In the picture, one can see Matti Wikberg and Tomi Björck from Farang ning Chee Loong Chong from Chedi. The cooks of the two restaurants are eager to share a kitchen. There is always plenty to learn at such joint cooking events.

There is a big rush! In Tallinn, Farang was welcomed by a jam-packed restaurant and a line of people behind the door. Chedi was bigger in Helsinki than in Tallinn. As long as Farang can receive more visitors, that evening Chedi had to make more food than they are used to in Tallinn.

The food served at Farang is distinctive for ample use of fresh and exotic green herbs. The first course of their degustation menu - smoked salmon in betel leaves, roasted beef and trout caviar set the tone for the dishes to follow.

Trout and nuts are hardly exotic, but I can still taste betel leaves in my mouth. Though the long journey to Tallinn took away some of their freshness, they still did a good job of introducing the tastes of Farang.

King mackerel sashimi a la Vietnam. Simple yet interesting. One should rather taste it than try to put the taste into words as it is often the case with good tastes.

Farang’s degustation menu is varied and consists altogether of eight different dishes. The cooks who are eager to show off unfortunately often mix so many different tastes in their overly long menus that it takes a real gourmand to be able to appreciate and digest them.

Farang is not about showing off. When the meal is over, you have exactly the right feeling: you would like to have some more, what a pity that everything has been eaten. However, the mission has been accomplished – I will make sure to eat at Farang on my next trip to Helsinki.

Dim sum is the crème de la crème of Asian cuisine. When it comes to dim sum, their quality in our best-known restaurants often resembles that of pelmeni, i.e. they are so-so and rarely delicious. Dim sums are the signature dish of Chedi it should be proud of.

Dim sums are not available in restaurants in Helsinki. Or if they are offered somewhere, the quality definitely falls short of this standard. The people who come to Farang are not random visitors. The first course of Chedi’s menu makes quite an impression on them.

The same holds for the next two dishes. Beef fried on an extremely hot pan. You will never get tired of this.

Grilled Chilean sea bass with Chinese honey. It is one the dishes people in Tallinn visit Chedi again and again. In Helsinki the bass looks the same as well as tastes the same.

Chedi's mission of arousing interest in Helsinki was also accomplished. We think that as the inhabitants of neighbouring cities we know each other almost inside out. However, it is not the case!