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December 8, 2016

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Taste for tradition helps local restaurant thrive

By Xu Wenwen | December 8, 2016, Thursday | Print Edition

FEW restaurants in Hangzhou are as popular as Kun Yu Ge. But for owners, husband and wife team Guo Xiangqian and Wu Hongyu, establishing themselves among the city’s dining stalwarts didn’t happen overnight.

Thirty years ago, Guo and Wu were among the first to enter Hangzhou’s then nascent restaurant industry following the launch of China’s reform and opening-up policies. They’ve also been among the city’s few food-and-beverage leaders to actively cultivate Hangzhou’s traditional culinary culture.

Guo, 46, started working as a cook when he was 16 years old, and became a chef at the age of 23. According to the Guo himself, he was born to be a cook because of his sensitive tongue.

“I try one dish, and I can copy it,” he claimed.

His wife, Wu, became a waitress at a hotel in 1987. From this humble position, she rose through the ranks to take on a series of management roles. Five years ago, she and Guo decided to open Kun Yu Ge on Zhonghe Road S.

‘Taste is a memory’

Over the past two decades, Hangzhou’s restaurant market has been influenced by the arrival of other regional Chinese cuisines, as well as the rise of fusion food. Along the way, many so-called authentic Hangzhou restaurants have strayed from the city’s time-honored food ways.

Guo and Xu have resisted the outside influences and stuck to tradition. They only serve Hangzhou and Cantonese food made by experienced local chefs from areas where these cuisines originated.

“We do not hire non-local cooks to make local foods,” said Wu. “Because taste is a memory, something that cannot be explained or taught.”

Some traditional Hangzhou dishes seldom seen elsewhere today remain available at Kun Yu Ge. These include yellow croaker meat dry-fried with Hangzhou chili pepper, preserved mustard, and edamame.

The fish meat is first starched and then deep-fried to preserve its tenderness. It is then dry-fried along with the other ingredients until the moisture from the vegetables is gone, thus the oil and umami of the fish is absorbed into the pepper and edamame, while the saltiness of the mustard infuses the fish.

An inexperienced non-local cook, said Guo, would probably deep fry everything to make the peppers look glistening and greenish, or add a final dash of starch to give the fish a shiny appearance. “This is wrong because it does not reflect the original taste of the ingredients,” he added.

Highlighting the original taste of foods is a top priority, believes Guo, who never uses additives. “Some restaurants cook crayfish with canned crayfish sauce, or grill fish with canned grilled-fish sauce, which requires no skill at all.”

At his restaurant, crayfish is cooked with Chinese herbs and seasonings, which are put into the pot in a particular order and according to precise timing.

Loyal customers

“Additives destroy people’s taste,” Wu said with a hint of sadness. “The stimulating complex taste of various additives numbs people’s gustation and makes them unable to tell what tastes good and what tastes bad.”

A further thing that should be avoided is frozen ingredients. The restaurant’s must-order sweet and sour pork rib is made with fresh ribs. Another recommended food, mantou (steamed bun), is freshly prepared. This gives it a more pleasing texture than steamed buns that are kept in a freezer.

The couple says they do some adaptations as well, but in a “reasonable” way. For example, in their take on the traditional Hangzhou dish shrimp boiled with bamboo shoots and preserved mustard, they break from tradition by boiling their shrimp with preserved cabbage, since “the cabbage is tender and its flavor is easier to be absorbed by the shrimp.”

Also helping the restaurant’s appeal are its budget-friendly prices. The dry-fried croaker costs 38 yuan (US$5.51), the sweet and sour pork is 28 yuan, and the glutinous sesame cake is priced at 20 yuan.

Discussing the popularity of Kun Yu Ge, Wu mentioned that the restaurant has already been fully booked for Spring Festival Eve in 2018. For many Chinese families, this is the most important night of the year and usually an occasion for a big family feast. She also told of a pair of German engineers who ate lunch and dinner at the restaurant every day for four months, as well a woman who sent the restaurant’s glutinous sesame cakes to her daughter in the UK because they were her favorite food.

But running a restaurant is laborious. For five years, the couple has worked at least 12 hours a day and never had a single day off, including on Spring Festivals.

The couple says they will retire when the time comes, but hopefully “my disciple, and my disciple’s disciples can continue the tradition so the root of our foods remains,” said Guo.

 

Address: 98 Zhonghe Rd S.

Tel: (0571) 8608-6177

Hangzhou


 

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