Kylin Experience

Kylin Experience is the Dehradun outpost of the Kylin pan-Asian restaurant group, anchored on Rajpur Road in a contemporary chic-modern dining room with a sushi counter, a small cocktail bar and a dim sum kitchen visible from the main floor. The format is the same that the group has built across Delhi and the north-Indian tier-1 capitals: a confident pan-Asian menu running through Japanese, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese registers, executed at restaurant-trade prices that undercut the hotel rooms.

The cooking is built on a tight pan-Asian backbone. The sushi counter runs a careful selection of nigiri and maki, the dim sum kitchen runs the standard Cantonese and Shanghai programme, the ramen and soba kitchen is the strongest Japanese noodle programme in Dehradun, and the Thai and Vietnamese section runs the green curry, the tom kha gai and a serious banh mi at lunch. Signature plates include the truffle chicken dim sum, the volcano sushi roll, the crispy Peking-style duck and the salt-pepper soft-shell crab.

The cocktail programme is the strongest non-hotel bar in Dehradun. The bar runs a long Asian-inflected card - yuzu, lemongrass, ginger, a careful sake selection - and a small wine programme that pairs accurately with the pan-Asian register. Beer and a Japanese whisky pour are the right register for a casual dinner.

Service is unfussy and quick; the room is built for two- and four-tops and handles them well. For a romantic first dinner where the brief is fashion-forward and contemporary - and not heritage Indian - Kylin is the most chic booking on Rajpur Road.

Kylin Experience is the chic first-date dinner on Rajpur Road. The chic interiors, the sushi and dim sum counter, the contemporary Asian cocktail programme and the right scale for a two-top combine into Dehradun's most fashion-forward romantic dinner without committing to a hotel.