We Keep Going Back To Ping's For Potent Cocktails, Meats & Salads

From the peeps behind PCO and ATM, Ping’s Cafe Orient is a beautiful cafe situated in Lodhi Colony Market, boasting of a menu of Asian and fusion fare, paired with a fruity and potent cocktail list.

Coming from the PCO folks, we expected a stellar drinks menu, and going by what we tried we weren’t disappointed in the least. The Planter’s Punch {not on the menu but you can request for it} is a rum-based concoction with star anise—subtly sweet and spiced with a slice of mandarin, it was pretty potent and served its purpose of spreading the happiness around. The Mood Cocktail, made with seasonal fruit {mango, currently}, almost tasted like an alcoholic version of the mango shake. Super high on flavour, this one.

We’re not talking about Christmas, but Ping’s beautiful menu. We started with a bunch of green salads. The minced chicken salad was an uber spicy affair comprising little morsels of chicken, peanuts, greens and red chillies. The quinoa salad had chunks of mango and was perfect as a follow-up to the first one. However, our favourite salad has to be the raw mango. Perfectly sour plump slices of mango doused in a tangy dressing—this is what soothing PMS dreams are made of.

After our dose of greens, we moved on to the meats starting with Chicken Yakitori and Pork Yakitori {succulent cubes of pork served with a sambal dip}. For main course, we tried the fish biryani, which was basically a rice preparation infused with Oriental spices {it tasted predominantly Thai} with bits of tender grilled fish. The Khao Suey was pretty great, too, but we’re biased towards the starters.

Dim lights, red walls, and wooden upholstered chairs make Ping’s the ideal place for an evening drinking session. We love that every table has a little switch attached to the wall, which lights up the bulb hanging above the table and summons the server. *Ping*

Do not miss the mango with sticky rice in summer.