Chinese Food, Chinese Style

Vacations & Travel - Autumn 2002

China can be a confronting land, as confronting as the turtle shell on my plate - offered in a spirit of generosity for the delicacy that it is said to be. As confronting too as the dreadful tourist restaurant that is a "must stop" on my way to the Great Wall, a pilgrimage that is rudely interrupted by the detour to a 2000-seat restaurant where the food is bland and the waitresses make one hell of a racket. It could not be in starker contrast to the quiet, dignified surroundings of the restaurant in Hangzhou where the table is decked with gold cloth and I enjoy one of the finest meals of my life. Nor had I anticipated the warmth of our welcome at Shanghai's Huating Hotel when our group of jet-lagged travellers was met with a splendid array of delicacies, from Peking duck to noodles handmade before our eyes, dainty little desserts and the cutest prawn cocktails I have ever seen.

But then travel is like that - a warts-and-all experience that gives us an insight into another culture and, it is hoped, leaves us wiser for it. And China is a land of contradictions anyway. One only has to see the extreme capitalism at work in this bastion of communism to marvel at the juxtaposition. Nowhere is this more obvious than in cosmopolitan, dynamic Shanghai. There are more than 1000 restaurants in this city, not to mention tea houses and street stalls - so many that it is almost impossible to know where to begin. Where once the quaint little Park Hotel housed the city's highest restaurant (here we enjoyed a simple meal of beans, sweet and sour fish, omelette and steamed dumplings) now the buildings reach for the stars. Less than a decade ago Pudong, on the east side of the Huangpu River, was swampy farmland; today it is a modern metropolis where drinks in the bar atop the Grand Hyatt will take you on an 85-storey elevator ride, with a price tag just as breathtaking.

At the nearby Shangri-La Hotel it is down rather than up to an English pub-style bar that is as cosy and charming as the Hyatt's is spectacular. There are hundreds of bars to choose from in Shanghai, each with its own ambience, an entire strip of them along Hengshan Lu Road. For a slice of 1930s nostalgia, however, you cannot go past drinks on the rooftop of the Peace Hotel, with its fabulous view of the Bund by night. For more nostalgia the area around Yuyuan Garden has some lovely old tea houses, but also, it must be said, the ubiquitous Starbucks. The Shanghai Old Town Restaurant nearby is said to offer good traditional local cuisine. One Shanghai restaurant setting tongues wagging is M on the Bund, run by an Australian, Michelle Garnaut, who also owns an enormously successful Hong Kong restaurant, M at the Fringe. Her Shanghai restaurant has a Mediterranean-inspired menu and fabulous views of the Bund and the Pudong skyscrapers.

At the invitation of a local friend, we enjoyed the ambience of Ye Old Station Restaurant, which has wonderful photos of old Shanghai adorning the walls. The restaurant looks out over a courtyard, with a steam train at the far end, and two old carriages set up as dining rooms. The food was inspired, with a great mix of flavours. We started with soft, tiny dates and a plate of dainty bean-curd rolls filled with spinach. The dishes to follow included shredded chicken with a spicy peanut sauce; a sweet, cold fish dish, which was a pleasant contrast to the other dishes; crusted pork with a very more-ish dipping salt; and twice-cooked crisp duck accompanied by little folded dough parcels - a modern take on Peking duck? To complete the picture Shanghai noodles and a bowl of steamed dumplings in broth.

Around Shanghai it is clear that there is not a speck of land in this densely populated country that is not put to good use. If the land is not used for housing or commercial purposes, then it is turned over for cultivation: rice paddies, vegetable plots, poultry farms. On the way to Wuzhen, an old waterside town, we passed an ostrich farm and numerous duck farms. In this picturesque little town with its flagstone alleyways and ancient houses, the shops have become a showcase for traditional crafts, including rice-wine making and sweet making. The town has one oddly named restaurant, Jiujiang Building Restaurant, which offered a welcome respite from the heat and produced a thoroughly enjoyable meal of pork ribs with garlic cloves, duck broth with dumplings, a tasty bean-curd dish, chicken (head on), steamed whole fish, eel in a black bean sauce (step outside and you see the eels live in a bucket), and a plate of crystal prawns beautifully decorated with tiny chrysanthemum flowers. Nearby Tongxiang is the native home of the white chrysanthemum.

Suzhou, another ancient waterside town, albeit without the quiet charm of Wuzhen, failed to turn up any culinary delights but does have some lovely classical gardens going for it, one of which, the Master of Nets, is the venue for a very special evening show of music, dance and drama. More satisfying, gastronomically, was Hangzhou, one of China's seven ancient capitals, known for the ethereal beauty of its West Lake. Parts of the lake are abloom with lotus, cultivated not just for its beauty but also for food. Even the roots are used, producing a starch used to make porridge that is served at all the tea houses in the area. From October to November the lake produces freshwater crab, which is said to be fantastic. Tea plantations circle the lake, the Jiangsu province around Hangzhou being home to some of China's finest green tea.

“Chinese people can’t live without tea. In China, we say, ‘no tea, no life’,” says our host at the Longjing, or Dragon Well, plantation near Hangzhou. Idenitfying himself only by the name Shining, he is the 18 th generation member of his family to be involved in the tea business and did a four-year university degree to learn the finer points of tea production. Tea from the state-owned Longjing plantation is said to have been a favourite of Premier Zhou Enlai, and is now designated as the only “national gift tea”, presented to visiting heads of state and other dignitaries. “It’s the crown of Chinese green tea,” says Shining, as he swirls his hand through a basket of first-grade leaves. “Dragon Well Tea is the only tea where the whole process is done by hand, so the leaf in the cup looks like the whole tea on the bush. It is not only a beverage but art.”

The leaves were once dried in metal trays over fire, but today electricity is used, the roaster swirling the leaves by hand over heat to slowly remove the moisture. It is a long, arduous process, taking eight hours to dry one kilo, and according to Shining, the entire production process is very natural: “We never use chemicals.” Unlike the Japanese, the Chinese prefer their tea to be whole leaves, and the lighter the colour the better. Longjing’s unfermented green tea makes a beautiful jade-coloured infusion with a fragrant aroma and subtle flavour. It comes in a golden container, gold being the colour of royalty. It is considered a prestigious gift and is sometimes given to a bride and groom on their wedding day (usually one pack for each). We take our leave with one tin, priced at around $30 for 125g, second-grade. One of the world’s rarest and most expensive teas, a similar sized container of first-grade tea would have set us back around $50.

Longjing tea leaves gave a subtle flavour to the sliced abalone we sampled during a splendid meal at Hangzhou’s Shangri-La hotel, which has a picturesque location overlooking West Lake. The hotel's elegant and dignified Shang Palace restaurant serves Cantonese and Hangzhou specialties, including the region's two most famous dishes, beggar's chicken and vinegared fish. The chicken is seasoned with herbs before being wrapped in lotus leaves and baked slowly in a clay overcoat. Legend has it that the dish was created by a poor man who stole a chicken and was about to cook it on a fire when the landowner passed by. To conceal it, he hastily wrapped it in mud and tossed it on the fire, later discovering the succulent cooked bird inside. The fish dish, which also has its origins in a folk tale, transforms the local West Lake carp into a delicacy. The fish is boiled in water then stewed in a sweet and sour juice, the result being tender, with a crab-like flavour.

In a Beijing gripped with Olympic fever, the "must have" is Peking duck. We sampled it at the Beijing Quanjude Restaurant, which claims to be the biggest roast-duck restaurant in Asia. Seven storeys high, it goes through 1000 ducks a day. The birds are roasted with syrup, and air is pumped in to separate the skin from the fat underneath (one of my books recommends using a bicycle pump for this), ensuring that the skin is crisped while the bird cooks on a spit. The skin is eaten with small pancakes, spring onions and a thick bean sauce. We found the stewed duck liver, grilled duck heart and other dishes that preceded it to be fairly nondescript, but the Peking duck itself was very good indeed.

* Christine's itinerary was prepared with the assistance of Helen Wong’s Tours. Inquiries: (02) 9267 7833.

© Christine Salins

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