Inchin Bamboo Garden's Indo-Chinese cuisine has a ways to go

I was really looking forward to sampling the fare from Inchin's Bamboo Garden, the Alpharetta, Georgia-based chain specializing in Indo-Chinese cuisine, commonly referred to as "Hakka" cuisine. With 24 locations across the continent and counting, Inchin's appeared to have found a winning formula to bring Hakka cuisine to the masses. So, yeah, I had my hopes up and made the drive down to Hunter's Creek with some Hakka enthusiasts who, too, were stoked to feast on scorching soy-sauced dishes.

The arrival of the Hakka Chinese to India in the late 1700s led to a gastronomic synthesis of infernal spicing from the subcontinent fused with Chinese cookery. It's the sort of food I became quite familiar with, having grown up eating the noodly and stir-fried renditions at Federick's, Yueh Tung, Lin Garden and Chopstick House in the greater Toronto area. But inside this sizable space that previously housed Palate Bistro & Bar — and Melbourne Seafood Co. and Jimmy Hula's before that — the kitchen clearly wasn't overly concerned with quality.

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Photo by Matt Keller Lehman

The hot and sour soup ($5 small, $15 large), which one of my dining comrades couldn't wait to try, was more like an infernal pool of dishwater. The thin, egg-free broth was more sweet than it was sour. One sip of the comfortless liquid was enough to relegate the bowl to the fringes of our table. Equally unsatisfying was the crispy chili baby corn ($12). "It feels like I'm eating cobs," joked the other pal about the very firm cores of this chili fry. And it wasn't the only unevenly cooked item we ordered — a plate of crispy chili potatoes ($12) had more of a crunch than anything else. The pan-fried chili fish ($14) was cooked just fine, but the soggy coating didn't do any wonders for the tilapia fillets.

By now it dawned on us that our meal was not going to be the superlative Chindian chowdown we thought it would be. The steamed dumplings filled with lamb ($9) we ordered (and were charged for) never materialized. Instead, we picked away at the sambal lamb ($20) which came served on a hot plate, it seems, for looks only — the mix of chopped lamb with onion, celery and garlic had zero sizzle. And the sambal? "I think they're just using Asian names now," said my dining comrade with a straight face. Flavors of lemongrass and shrimp paste were largely nonexistent. A dish of eggplant ($15) cooked in a hot bean sauce with bell peppers and onion fared a lot better. The garlic naan ($6), on the other hand, looked like it was premade and not baked in a tandoor. Plus, it was so soaked in ghee, we wondered if the clarified butter was a masking agent.

If there was a dish we actually enjoyed, it was the Cantonese rice noodles ($16) with chicken. "Guangzhou Meets Bombay" is how it's hyped, and the chili pickle tossed with cabbage, carrots, bell peppers and chives had all the crunchy-fiery feels. We ended with a dessert of fried wontons filled with dates and vanilla ice cream ($9). Let's just say we ate the ice cream.

On a positive note, the servers and staff couldn't have been more gracious. At times, their courtesy came off as desperate, almost a means to make up for the food. I kinda felt bad for them, especially when a couple of staff members raced out to the car to hand us the doggy bag I accidentally left behind. I just wish I was able to meet their warm exuberance with the same amount of enthusiasm.