New Chinese Restaurant opens doors in town

Sana Jamal

Courtesy: Restaurant Facebook page.

Xinhua Capital Restaurant is the new eating place in town that serves Chinese as well as Thai cuisines - a delight for the taste buds. Many a people joined the exclusive opening of the restaurant and to the delight of the visitors, they were offered a few bites of the appetizers - crispy fish fingers and sesame chicken with a bit of sauce.

Located in F-10/3 (at former Café Eclipse location), though away from the commercial area, the restaurant opening is a good news for the local residents since “Xinhua specifically cater to people in vicinity of F-10 and 11, G-11 and E-11 because all the Chinese restaurants are to be found in Supermarket, Jinnah Super or Blue area,” told Zafar Rahim, co-owner of Xinhua Capital.

Courtesy: Restaurant Facebook page.

The restaurant, includes two floors plus a lovely rooftop, and has cheering interior colours that go well with delightful decor including bright yellow lights that brighten up the space. Xinhua is a classy restaurant that provides authentic Sichuan cuisines with comfortable dining atmosphere. 

“Xinhua offers an entirely different variety of Chinese food”, beamed Imran Mahsud, co-owner of Xinhua. It is rather a fusion of both Chinese-Pakistani food; but the speciality of the eatery is Sichuan cuisines that is “served with authentic sauces and not typical gravy”, said Zafar Rahim. 

Original Sichuan food, generally considered as hot, sour, sweet, and salty, is famous for its several flavors, and every dish has its own unique taste. “Famous for its hot and spicy nature, Sichuan cuisine has good combinations of flavors and often has thick gravy”, explained Tauqir Abbas, operations manager of the restaurant. Ghulam Ali, the head chef of Xinhua, has an experience of 25 years of cooking in some fine restaurants of Pakistan. He is accompanied by Chinese and Thai chef at Xinhua restaurant. 

Xinhua Capital is a joint venture of two brothers, Imran Mahsud and Zafar Rahim, who had long experience in restaurant business where they started with “All that Rock café” in 1997, and then “Café Eclipse”, both in Islamabad. But why the swift shift from café to proper family restaurant? “Primarily after the sheesha ban, we stopped serving sheesha and then decided to transform the whole café into a proper restaurant,” said Imran. This change of course denotes how some cafes were affected and other modified after the authorities banned sheesha cafes and smoking in public places last year (2012).