It certainly wasn’t a place I would go to on my own.
Chungking Mansions was certainly not for the faint hearted. From the outside it looked like an rickety, overlighted building with many South Asians (Indians, Sri Lankans and similar) loitering around. Once you approach the building, endless leaflets advertising everything from food to clothes are stuffed into your hands.
It wouldn’t be that bad if these vendors didn’t start to surround you and shouted unsolicited offers, from food to suits to everything imaginable under the sun, in your face. It was worse than my experience with the insufferable touts at the Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar.
Under so under considerable duress my friends and I made a choice for a dinner place (somewhat random, but hey when in doubt, just close your eyes and jab, hehe) and made our way to the third floor of Chungking Mansions, where The Delhi Club was at.
The exterior of the restaurant was, like the rest of the building, plainly deceiving. Just a nondescript door that would be otherwise mistaken as the entry to someone’s house, if not for the posters decorating the wall outside. The overenthusiastic Indian proprietor of the place welcomed us in and soon we were seated somewhat comfortably in the deep cavern of the restaurant.
After debating the pros and cons of Indian cuisine to the best of our limited knowledge (there were two Malaysians in the group but that didn’t add on much to our culinary advantage), we took a collective breathe and ordered… randomly.
It was certainly a random kind of night ;)
