Little Soi in Coimbatore offers an interesting array of Asian street food

Little Soi in Coimbatore offers Asian street food with a fun vibe, including tom kha soup, buldak chicken, and Lotus Biscoff cheesecake.

The dragonflies painted on the walls at Little Soi keep us company while we wait for our food to arrive. The black-and-red themed décor with rattan furniture and quirky wall posters lend a relaxed, fun vibe to the restaurant that offers the best of Asian street food. We sit down for a meal a year after its launch in Coimbatore — the brand has branches in Chennai apart from Kochi — and try to understand why it has won hearts within such a short period of its arrival.

First off is the tom kha soup: the creamy concoction of coconut milk and poached chicken feels like a warm hug. This soup is also available in prawn and mixed vegetable variations, and sets the tone for the rest of the meal — think mild flavours with a lingering sweetness, with the exception of one or two dishes. Crabmeat soup with asparagus flavoured kimichi sounds exciting, so does Shanghai hot and sour, but we give them a pass to make way for the other starters and the main course.

A Tamilvanan, the restaurant manager suggests we try the buldak chicken, the Korean ‘fire chicken’, a crowd favourite. It arrives gleaming crimson with melted cheddar cheese on top. For our Indian palate that has tolerated much fiercer variations of chicken, this is not exactly chicken on fire, but is delicious nevertheless. The meat is soft and tender, and has been tossed in the bold and sweet gochujang sauce that is known for its umami flavour.

What is Asian street food without dumplings? Our picks for the day are cream cheese and chilli oil and prawn hargau dumplings look like little spheres of moonlight on the table. The translucent outer dough is so soft that it almost gives way on touch; Tamilvanan says that the sheets are made in-house, so are all their sauces. The cream cheese filling is the stuff of dreams; with a dip of the fiery chilli oil, it is the kind of dish that one can keep popping in.

But we also have the prawn and bamboo shoot dumpling to try, and grudgingly turn our attention towards them. We are glad we did: the delicate filling feels like a cloud. While at the starters, we also order a salad to feel virtuous. The colourful Thai raw papaya salad is fresh and crunchy, sweet, and sour. It is something refreshing to munch on while we wait for the orange chicken bao. This dish is the star of our meal — it is light and airy, with a mildly tangy filling that pairs perfectly with the bun’s sweetish aftertaste.

The Burmese khao suey follows. The noodle soup served with assorted condiments such as crispy bits of fried garlic, peanuts, chilli flakes, and tofu, all of which are tossed together at the table, among their best-sellers, is a burst of flavours and textures. While it is not served as hot as we would have preferred it to be, it wins us over. The much-talked about chicken rendang arrives with a flourish, served with a mildly-sweet rice with coconut milk. The chicken is not bold enough to hold its own when had with the rice; perhaps this is because we are so used to pairing our rice dishes with something spicy.

If social media buzz is anything to go by, Little Soi has a regular clientele walking in for just its desserts, the Lotus Biscoff cheesecake, in particular. Just a spoonful of the dense and creamy cake with a crumbly biscuit base and we understand why. We would definitely come back here for more.