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Ordinary places offering extraordinary fare
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IN the 1996 Hong Kong comedy movie “The God of Cookery,” directed by and starring Stephen Chow, Chow plays a disgraced celebrity chef who opens a street stall selling meatballs and believes he can stage a comeback, despite the unpromising location of his eatery.
At the end of the movie, Chow presents a bowl of pork rice at a competition. The Goddess of Heaven descends and tells him that in a previous life he was assistant to the Kitchen God but was expelled from Heaven for giving away culinary secrets.
However, adds the goddess, his pork rice is indeed so tasty that he will now be known as the God of Cookery.
The moral of the tale, of course, is that great taste needn’t only be found in fancy restaurants or hotels.
Indeed, the only way for inconspicuous restaurants, often located near residential blocks, to beat higher-profile competitors is through taste.
Today we bring the glare of publicity to three small and apparently ordinary eateries hidden away down side streets in Hangzhou.
They seem so commonplace that you probably wouldn’t give them a second glance when passing by, yet they have legions of loyal customers, mostly people from nearby communities, who keep coming back because they know the food’s much more special than the surroundings.
Were it not for the cooking aromas wafting out the windows, you would hardly know that this is a restaurant. There’s no signage, only three stickers on a window bearing the characters San Jie Mei — The Three Sisters.
Its bosses — appropriately enough, three sisters (though not forgetting their husbands too) — say they don’t really care about their low profile because they are already busy enough serving their loyal customers.
And The Three Sisters serves authentic local cuisine.
Start with the signature carp and tofu soup, a dish so ordinary in Hangzhou households that big restaurants gave up making it a long time ago.
Featuring common ingredients, restaurants can’t charge much for it, yet it takes a long time to prepare.
The Three Sisters uses chicken soup instead of water to boil the carp and tofu, creating a rich, yet mild flavor. And the price is only 20 yuan (US$3.22). Vegetable dish prices are mostly single-digit, fish braised in soy sauce is 15 yuan, while 30-yuan fried shrimp is the most expensive dish. Most dishes are served in one minute.
The restaurant is almost always busy so arrive early to avoid queues. Dinner usually finishes early, with most dishes sold out by 8pm.
The Three Sisters sometimes doesn’t open at the weekends.
Address: 29 Hengchangshou Rd
In small lanes crisscrossing the city, mornings mean traditional street breakfasts made by vendors armed with bamboo steamer baskets, cauldrons and hot griddles. And buns, large or small, are the signature creations of many.
Among the many breakfast eateries, Wenzhou Shengjian has retained its position as one of Hangzhou’s best, despite moving around the city — currently settled in the north. Despite its changing locations one thing remains constant: queues that don’t seem to diminish until 10am every day.
Queuing at Wenzhou Shengjian are everyone from students and office workers to seniors — basically anyone who needs energy from the buns to study, work or after morning exercises.
The large number of customers ensures that each bun is fresh.
“We use about 350 kilograms of flour a day,” says stall owner Mao Hairui.
Mao from Wenzhou city in Zhejiang Province says that she inherited her recipe for the buns from her grandparents.
The stall currently provides shengjianbao — a small, pan-fried dumpling filled with pork.
Loyal customers say the shengjianbao is inexpensive and yummy.
“Three shengjianbao are ideal for a girl’s breakfast,” says one office worker queuing for her morning snack.
“They’re neither too oily nor too mild, the meat’s fresh and the oil’s good,” she adds.
Secret recipe aside, Mao believes the secret of her successful business is “to be generous.”
Mao says that compared to other shengjianbao stalls, the flour she uses is more expensive, she never reuses oil, and only uses a traditional coal oven.
“Brand image is the priority, even though we only run a small eatery,” Mao says.
Address: In Hemu Xincun residential area on Hedong Road, north to Dengyun Road
Despite the homespun signs claiming Good Dining Hall is “hard to find,” “very cheap,” and offers “home-style dishes” this is not really a humble family business.
It’s run by Ma Kunshan, once the youngest chef of the state-owned Hangzhou Yan’an Hotel, and today boss of Xinlong Chicken Feet, which grew from a small eatery to a franchise brand in three years.
“The competition among high-end restaurants is tough,” Ma explains. “I prefer to serve ordinary people in their own communities.”
Good Dining Hall is in Dongshannong community, and Ma’s ambition is to open more in other communities.
The homely yet clean restaurant provides local dishes priced from 3 yuan (48 US cents) to 38 yuan, with an average customer spend of about 20 yuan.
While the prices may be low, the quality of the dishes is anything but. The steamed eggplant uses organic eggplant from deep in the countryside, while the fish and snail soup — costing just 18 yuan — is a signature dish, praised for its natural umami. Meanwhile, the soy sauce pot features pig feet, belly and liver.
Adventurous expats should try chicken feet and drunken crab, recommended by Ma as his specialties. Drunken crab is raw crab marinated in alcohol with seasonings for days. The dish has a pleasant liquor aroma, and the meat in shells, which absorbs the alcohol, is juicy and tasty.
The chicken feet are boiled in soy sauce, resulting in dark brown meat, yet the texture remains al-dente because chef Ma himself prefers. He says the secret is not to simmer the feet for long time as many people do, rather, just boil the soup, then leave them in the pot for hours.
Address: In Dongshannong residential area on Xiyanghong Road, opposite to the parking place in Yuquan campus of Zhejiang University
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