I-Ching, my choice of Chinese restaurant in Santiago

Before going to I-Ching, I have tried several Chinese restaurants in Santiago, and they are all very disappointing, the dishes are not tasty, too much MSG, bad quality for the ingredients… So I was desperate until a friend from HongKong talked about I-Ching, so I would like to give a last chance before saying “the Chinese restaurants in Santiago are so bad!”.

I-Ching is located in Independencia where there is no convenient public transportation, the best way to go there is by car or taxi.

All the dishes on the menu are numbered and with photos, to help non-Chinese people choosing, so if you want to try the same dishes mentioned in this article, you can note the number of the dish.

Choeng fun (steamed rice roll) with prawn – D9. The pastry is made of rice and potato starch, smooth and thin, inside you have a few shrimps (too few in my opinion), but the taste is good. 

Then we have (from left to right, above to below) : char siu bao (steamed buns with BBQ pork – D17), Lo mai gai (steamed sticky rice with chicken and shiitake in lots leaves – D021), Nai Huang bao (steamed buns with custard cream – D016), stir-fried eggplant with green bean – B027(but no green bean that day). 

The Char Siu bao is quite tasty, the dough is well done, fluffy, soft and airy, don’t be surprised by the size of filling, this dim sum is always made with a small filling and a quite a thick dough which allows the dough to well inflate. 

The steamed chicken sticky rice is OK, the rice is too much cooked for me, a little bit too soft. There are many ingredients for the filling, chicken, shiitake, pork belly, dried scallops, some of better quality than some others…

The stir-fried eggplant is good, tender and melting, lightly spicy, greasy as well, but this dish is always greasy when you ordered in restaurant, unfortunately, the eggplant likes a lot oil! And still a bit too much MSG for my taste .

For the dessert, we choose these steamed buns with custard cream (English influence in Hong Kong cuisine). The cream is delicious, with wonderful texture, not too liquid, not too dry neither, it’s a bun that you should eat when it’s still warm, otherwise, the cream will be rigid. We have these buns on take-away and reheat them at home for our tea time, it’s great. Our favorite dish!

So I-Ching, it’s worth going there when you want some Chinese food in Santiago, the dishes are OK, of course, we can’t compare with the ones in Paris, in London or in New York, the quality is different, for me it’s because the Chinese community is not the same on one hand, and the Chilean people have not yet get used to the authentic Chinese  exotic flavor on the other hand.

If you are fan of Chinese food or want to discover what authentic Chinese cuisine tastes like, I-Ching is the place to go in Santiago. The quality is yet far from what you could find in the other best Chinese restaurants of the biggest western cities (not to mention in Asia), the prices are lower too by the way. But it is still more than decent, much better than in other Chinese restaurant we have tried in the city and some cantonese dishes are actually quite good.

I-Ching restaurant 

Palermo 1468, Independencia, Santiago Metropolitan Region

Opening: Monday-Sunday 11:30-21:00

Tel: 02 2777 9828