Delicious Dishes

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Huangcheng Laoma Restaurant is one of the most well-known traditional hotpot brands in China. Huangcheng Laomao literally means “Imperial City Old Mother” in Chinese. It was first founded by Mrs. Liao Huanying in Chengdu 1986. Her first hotpot restaurant was located in the former imperial city of Chengdu. Her frequent clients kindly called her “Huangcheng Laoma”, hence the brand name in the years followed. All its chain stores are constructed in the imitation of the classical architecture of Southwest China and elegantly decorated with woodcuts, calligraphy and other typical Chinese elements. Hangcheng Laoma has already been regarded as the worthy representative of Sichuan culture and cuisine. Here you can not only enjoy the delicious food but also the splendid performance of Sichuan Opera including the famous changing face.

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Songhelou Restaurant, created in 1737 during the Qing Dynasty, is the most famous old trademark of Suzhou Cuisine. Chinese ancients take the picture of songhe (a crane on a pine) as the symbol of longevity. The restaurant so named Songhe Lou is also for such a nice wish. This 200-year-old restaurant in Taijian Alley, Suzhou, has long been known for its authentic Suzhou dishes. The restaurant fully inherits the traditional features of Suzhou Cuisine, attaching importance to materials, cutting and duration and degree of heating. While maintaining tradition, the restaurant has made many innovations. Songhelou’s most popular dishes are freshwater fish and shrimps. Songhelou is the home of “Squirrel Fish” (sweet and sour mandarin fish), a fried boneless fish dressed with a sweet-and-sour sauce.

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Chen’s Mapo Tofu Restaurant goes way back in 1862 during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). First found at Wanfu Bridge, north suburb of Chengdu, the restaurant was called Chen Xingshung Eating House. Mrs. Chen was the main chef then. She cooked a tofu dish in bright red color, crispy beef cubes and spicy hot tofu diced in beautiful shapes. The story of how the name Mapo Tofu came to be is quite interesting. Mrs. Chen was a pockmarked woman who was only allowed to stay at the outskirts of the city due to her appearance. She lived by the roadside where travelers usually traverse. During those times, rich merchants usually stay within the city. One stormy night, a father and son had to find shelter at the outskirts and ended up at Mrs. Chen’s home. She made them the dish on what we now called Mapo Tofu. The two found it so delicious that whenever they visit the city, they would drop by her place to eat. Soon after more people start visiting her home, gourmands at that time also frequently visited the place and soon it became one of China’s famous dishes. The popularity of Mapo Tofu comes from its well-known taste and smell of the tender Tofu cooked in spicy ingredients everyone is impressed by it spicy, hot, aromatic, tender qualities. If you want to try the traditional and best Mapo Tofu, you should go to the Chen’s Mapo Tufu Restaurant.

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Fuqi feipian (夫妻肺, fūqī fèipiàn), also called “Married Couple’s Slices of Lung”, is a popular Sichuan dish – often served cold – which is made of thinly sliced beef, beef lung/stomach/tongue, and a generous amount of spices, including Szechuan peppercorns. True to its roots, the desired taste should be both spicy and mouth-numbing. Despite its name, actual lung is rarely used. The original meaning of Fuqi Feipian (夫妻废片) would be literally translated as “Married Couple’s Offal Slices.” The meaning of Fei in this name is not lung, but “waste parts or offal.” However, Fei or “waste parts or offal” has a negative meaning in Chinese, so the couple simply changed the character “废” to “肺” (lung) since they have the same pronunciation in Chinese. In addition, when it comes to Chinese food, lung always means pork lung. Therefore, the exact translation would be “Pork Lungs in Chili Sauce”. The legend of this dish dates back to the 1930s. There is a romantic story of the origin of this famous Sichuan dish. As early as the late Qing Dynasty, there was a married couple in Chengdu famous for making beef slices. They were particular about the beef slices they made, and often experimented with new ingredients. As a result, their beef slices had a distinct taste from the other beef slice vendors, and their business boomed. Often though, mischievous children would pull a prank on the couples and stick paper notes that read “Fuqi feipian” (Married Couple’s Offal Slices) on their backs, and sometimes people would yell the words out. Later on, a merchant tried the married couple’s beef slices and was so satisfied he gave them a gold-lettered plaque that read “Fuqi feipian”, and the name has stuck ever since. To suit their customers’ tastes, the couples made many improvements on the dish, and offal slices were eventually replaced by various beef or lamb slices. Many people still preferred calling the dish fuqi feipian, thus the name is still used today.

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Juchunyuan Hotel, located in Dongjiekou — a treasured land in the downtown of Fuzhou, about 5km from the railway station and 85km from the airport. The Juchunyuan Restaurant with more than one hundred year history, set up in 1877, was the original restaurant around which the hotel was built.  The 12-storey building covers 16,000 square meters. And its architecture is the creative combination of oriental and western style. There are 130 rooms in the hotel. The hotel also offers different restaurants. The Ju Xiang Yuan Buffet on the second floor offers Chinese and western foods, while Ju Ya Tai Bar on the underground floor provides guests with western dishes and drinks. For those that are seriously missing home, the hotel is also fronted by a KFC. The Restaurant on the third floor offers a wide range of Fujian cuisines, especially the world famous Fujianese dish “ Fo Tiao Qiang ” ( Buddha Jumping Over the Wall ). The hotel also offers multi-function service with its conference halls, business center, shopping arcade, beauty salon, sauna center, parking lots and so on.

Beggar’s Chicken (jiào huā jī 叫化鸡) is a dish with an interesting history and cooking method. Beggar’s Chicken story happened long times ago. The dish created by a beggar and cook by a specific way. Beggar Chicken was origin in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty. A beggar got a chicken one day, but didn’t have any spicy or tool to cook, so he wrapped up the chicken with slush, putting the mud pie into fire to bake and continuously collecting wood and baking mud pie. Finally, when the chicken was fully cooked, he began to knock open mud. To surprise, the feather was also falling off with mud, and the chicken smelled very nice. The beggar was happy and enjoyed a feast.

Later, Louwailou takes this cooking method and makes some improvement. The chef takes Chicken, Shaoxing’s Wine and the lotus leaf in West Lake as the material. First, they kill a fresh Chicken and clean it, add all kinds of spices, stuff condiment in chicken’s stomach, then bind it with West Lake lotus leaf, wrap it with a kind of mixture made by wine, salt water and mud from wine jar, finally bake it in steady fire for hours. The mud pile is opened in front of guests. Because the chicken is cooked in seal, the original taste is perfectly kept, and with the flavor of wine penetrating into chicken, you will feel a fragrance coming when opening the mud. Thus this dish is full of nutrition and smells very good.

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Louwailou is the restaurant of best reputation in Zhejiang Province. Louwailou, means “a house sets outside another building” in Chinese, has more than 150 years history. It located at the foot of Gushan (Solitary Hill) near the beautiful West Lake, Hangzhou and is famous for its “enjoying delicious dish and beautiful scenery together”.

The restaurant has served many famous people in history including Dr. Sun Yat-sen, a Chinese revolutionary, first president and founding father of the Republic of China; the first Premier of the People’s Republic of China Zhou Enlai; and Lu Xun, one of the major Chinese writer of 20^th century. It has many well-known traditional Hangzhou dishes and some famous dishes are:

West Lake Vinegar Fish (Before cooking, a grass carp is kept hungry in clear water for one to two days to rinse it well and get rid of the smell of mud. It is cut in half from head to tail but not separated, then delicately poached. It is topped with a sharp sweet and sour, vinegar-based sauce.)

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Dragon Well Tea Shrimp (This dish is prepared with the shelled fresh water shrimps and the well-know Drangon-Well green tea leaves It is beautiful in colour with , special tastes.)

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And also Beggar’s Chicken, Lady Song’s Fish Soup, Dongpo Pork.

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This Buddhist vegetarian stew ( Luó hàn cài, 罗汉菜) traditionally served on the first day of the Chinese New Year to bring good luck. There is a lot of vegetarian integration in the dish. Dried mushrooms can be either black or dark brown, and they have a strong meaty flavor, and need to be re-hydrated before use. Dried bean curd sticks are made from the surface film that forms during soy milk production. This film is collected, dried, and rolled up into sticks that must be re-hydrated before use. If you can’t find the dried bean curd sticks, substitute 8 ounces of the fresh film, and skip the soaking process. Used in Chinese cooking to represent wealth, dried lily buds, also known as golden needles or tiger lily buds, are the dried golden buds. They are often tied into knots after soaking to add texture. Dried black moss is a black hair-like moss grown in the deserts of China and Mongolia. It symbolizes prosperity and is a traditional component in the dish. Relatively tasteless, this moss must first be re-hydrated, but will absorb the flavor of the dish that it’s cooked in. Order dried black moss online or find it in the dried goods section in Asian markets. Dried black fungus, also known as cloud ear or wood ear, is a black or dark brown, frilly fungus grown on trees and often used in Asian cooking. After a soak in water, it swells in size and has a slightly crunchy texture. Fresh black fungus can occasionally be found in the refrigerated case of Asian markets, and the dried version in the dried goods section. Deep-fried tofu pockets are small, puffed tofu squares. They absorb a lot of flavor and liquid when cooked and can be found next to the regular tofu in the refrigerated section in Asian markets. Fried gluten balls are made of wheat gluten, water, and oil. These small, 2-inch balls are often found next to the regular tofu in the refrigerated section of Asian markets. Ginkgo nuts have a delicate and slightly sweet interior surrounded by a hard shell and skin that must be removed before cooking. Freshly shelled ginkgo nuts can be found in the refrigerated produce section of Asian markets. Or substitute the fresh with canned ginkgo nuts. Fresh bamboo shoots are boiled and can be found in the refrigerated produce section of most Asian markets. Canned bamboo shoots are readily available in most supermarkets. If possible, purchase canned bamboo shoot halves packed in water; they have a fresher flavor than pre sliced bamboo shoots.

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Suzhou has been called the ‘land of milk and honey’ since ancient times and Jiangsu cuisine, of which Suzhou cuisine makes up one important part, is one of the eight famous culinary arts in China. Suzhou dishes are praised highly by food connoisseurs from both home and abroad. Nearby Taihu Lake (Tai Lake) supplies abundant fresh sea food that adds more color to the table culture of Suzhou. It is an important custom for locals to eat specific dishes according to its area and resources. A famous dishes, Songshu Guiyu (mandarin fish, stewed and fried), which was praised by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) is considered to be the ultimate Suzhou dish. The Mandarin Fish is characterized by its lack of bones and the softness of its meat.  The head of the fish, its mouth positioned wide open, and the tail bent upwards, gives the overall look of a squirrel.  The fish is also cut into spikes resembling the fur.  It is finished with shrimp, dried bamboo shoots and a sweet-and-sour sauce and thus the Squirrel-shaped Mandarin Fish is complete in color, shape, and flavor.

Most famous restaurant specialized in Suzhou cuisine:

1. Song He Lou (Pine and Crane Restaurant)
Having more than 200 years’ history, good and authentic Suzhou cuisine here is noted worldwide. The Songshu Guiyu cooked here is highly recommended.

2.  Xie He Cai Guan (Xiehe Restaurant)
It is a very traditional restaurant cooking Suzhou Cuisine with reasonable price.

3. Shijia Restaurant
It has more than 200 years’ history, especially famous for its Bafei Tang.