Captivating cuisines(1)
Spicy and tongue-numbing eel at Meizhou Dongpo.
Black cod in seaweed butter at S.T.A.Y.
Private Room's black truffle dumpling.
Memorable meals from the past year suggest a dining extravaganza for the Year of the Dragon. Ye Jun reports.
It is hard to define good food. Some foods do not look appealing, but taste wonderful. Some look grand but have little taste. A huge piece of abalone can taste like steamed bread. Cabbage with diced pork can be fantastic to the palate.
At this festive occasion I try to forget all preconceptions and recollect the best culinary experiences I had in the past year as remembered only through my taste buds.
During an exclusive interview with China Daily, Spanish chef Ferran Andria, who visited Beijing on Aug 23, said "eating well feeds the soul". Well, more than one chef I talked with linked food with happiness. Somehow, these foods - translated through taste buds and nerve bundles - produce endorphin and make the experience memorable.
The dishes I recommend here might serve to remind you of some important happenings for Beijing's cuisine in the past year. They also offer some ideas for dining during the holiday.
Private Room's black truffle dumpling
Boiled dumpling, or jiaozi, is the traditional food for Spring Festival. Its popularity also makes it the most ordinary. There are hundreds of stuffings. But black truffle? When I first saw that on the menu at Private Room, Park Hyatt Beijing, I thought it was a stunt. But I was wrong. It was the best tasting jiaozi I've ever eaten.
The stuffing is not entirely black truffle, though. It is pork with shallots and pieces of black truffle. But it was a good combination because the black truffle and pork enhance each other's flavors. A plate of 12 jiaozi cost 120 yuan ($19). That's 10 yuan for a jiaozi, probably the most expensive I've tried.
This also reminds me of Din Tai Fung's xiaolongbao, or steamed bun in a small bamboo basket, with pork and black truffle stuffing, which is also a winner. Priced at 176 yuan ($27) for a bamboo steamer of 10, it is their most expensive xiaolongbao.
Private Room: 5/F Park Hyatt Hotel, Beijing. 010-8567-1118
Black cod in seaweed butter at S.T.A.Y.
The opening of S.T.A.Y. - the initials for simple table Alleno Yannick - by French chef Alleno Yannick was much anticipated by gourmets in Beijing. Classified as a five-star Michelin chef due to the ratings of his two restaurants, he lived up to that reputation with a beautiful and tasty lobster tart and black cod in seaweed butter. I've tried some really good cod, but his had a texture as fine as fresh scallops. I wonder how he did that.
I later went to the restaurant again, when the star chef is not there. It was a Thursday evenin文章来源中国酒业新闻网g, but it was full with customers at 8 pm. One could feel there is room for improvement on the part of service, but the food was not bad.
Beijing saw a great number of visiting Michelin star chefs in 2011, especially to restaurants in five-star hotels such as Le pre Lenotre at Wanda Sofitel Beijing. Other Michelin star chefs who opened up restaurants in Beijing were Daniel Boulud and his Maison Boulud, and Claudio Sadler, who started his Italian restaurant Sadler. Both are located inside Ch'ien Men 23.
S.T.A.Y.: 11:30 am-2 pm, 5:30-9:30 pm, Tuesday-Saturday. Open only for lunch on Sunday. Closed on Monday. 1/F Shangri-La Hotel Beijing, 29 Zizhuyuan Lu, Haidian district, Beijing. 010-6841-2211 Ext 6727
