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Dining in restaurants can be taste of home
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PEOPLE running restaurants generally like cuisine and probably cook up innovations at home themselves, producing unique recipes. In China, this is called si fang cai, or “private home cuisine.”
Once such a private dish is introduced onto a restaurant’s menu, it means the dish is recommended by the boss/chef; it’s a unique food that gourmets should try.
Passion for food goes beyond borders, of course.
Today, Shanghai Daily introduces you to some private home cuisines — in a Japanese restaurant, a pizza restaurant and a Hangzhou local restaurant.
Longtangli Restaurant
One of the most popular local cuisine chains in Hangzhou, Longtangli, provides a private home cuisine named “Fate.”
Two sea fish (pomfret and hairtail), with some mushrooms, preserved pork and preserved vegetables, are steamed together into a salt-flavored dish that combines with seafood’s umami.
It is not a classical Hangzhou cuisine, yet has a history of over 30 years — in the boss’ family.
“It was invented by my uncle because of an anecdote,” says Wang Junjie, the owner of Longtangli.
Wang’s uncle once ran into an old friend whom he hadn’t seen in more than 10 years, and he insisted the friend come to dinner at his home. But when he arrived home he realized he didn’t have a lot of food in the house — one hairtail, one pomfret, some mushrooms and some preserved pork.
Because none made a particular dish by itself, he combined them and steamed. The result was quite a delight, and the friend asked what the name was. Wang, in a flash of inspiration, said, “This is called ‘fate,’ and we met today because of fate.”
Since then, the dish has become Wang’s treat to good friends and relatives, and later Longtangli’s private home cuisine.
Address: 237 Hedong Rd
Tel: (0571) 8806-0985
Address: 18 Longjing Rd
Tel: (0571) 8808-3178
Address: Bldg No. 8, 63 Xiaohezhi St
Tel: (0571) 8896-8518
Address: A301, 3/F, 258 Yan’an Rd
Tel: (0571) 8587-0518
Yakitori Senkushiya ǧ´®ÎÝ
The restaurant recently opened a large branch near West Lake, and the boss, Xu Hui, has added chirashi-zushi, his favorite private home cuisine, to the menu.
Translated as “scattered,” chirashi involves fresh seafood, vegetables and other ingredients placed on top of sushi rice in a bowl or dish.
Xu’s loyal customers call it Boss’ Rice because Xu has been seen taking chirashi-zushi as dinner many times, and because the dish did not yet appear on the menu. It’s provided only to frequent visitors at his smaller outlet.
But in the large new branch, chirashi-zushi is the specialty. Fresh salmon, shortly boiled shrimp, sliced nori, diced tofu, preserved sweet ginger, glossy rice neither too hard nor too soft, with some drops of Japanese soy sauce and some wasabi round out the mouth-watering dish.
Good dish goes to good “dish” — the plate Xu prepares for chirashi-zushi for six persons is Imari porcelain, which costs more than 2,000 yuan (US$325) each.
Some other new items include Boss Salad — also Xu’s favorite that features pork inside. There’s also grilled fish fin — not shark’s but manta ray’s, a very al-dente snack with strong seafood taste that goes well with white wine.
Xu’s restaurants are recommended by many well-known food critics. The classical foods of Yakitori Senkushiya are yakitori (kebabs), including grilled chicken meat, viscera, cartilage and skin.
Xu, who calls himself a “student” of Senkushiya, found the best yakitori in Tokyo and paid “a lot of money” to learn from the chef there.
Address: No. 32, Lower Manjielong on Manjuelong Road
Zola Restaurant
It is interesting to see Southeast Asian cuisines on a pizza restaurant’s menu, and it is impressive to know that Zola’s loyal customers recommend Hainan chicken rice, large meatball, and Singapore crab most. The latter two are not even on the menu but offered only to frequent visitors.
Zola’s chef has worked in high-end Southeast Asian restaurants in large cities, and his specialty is Hainan chicken rice.
The dish might look simple: rice matched with boiled and chopped chicken. In fact the recipe is complicated. First the raw chicken is stuffed with fried garlic and ginger as well as Malaysian herbs, then is boiled just enough that the meat is tender and juicy while the skin is unbroken.
Chicken oil is used to fry rice first, and then chicken soup is used to boil the rice. This leaves the rice clearly separated, and each grain is glossily wrapped with chicken oil. Even the soy sauce is the special condensed South Asian version that is more flavored than ordinary soy sauce.
The pizza restaurant’s pizzas are very popular, as evidenced by the number of foreign customers. The secret is the large stove made of coarse bricks equipped with an advanced system that controls the temperature and is heated by a fruitwood fire.
All pizzas feature thin dough and crust with lots of bubbles, which is so crispy that chewing the rim is like chewing a soda cracker.
Address: 88 Jingzhou Rd
Tel: (0571) 8190-3128
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