So, when I said that Chengdu has good food... hell, did I ever mean it! :) One restaurant that definitely needs a review is the Yunmen, the only Nouvelle Cuisine Chinoise restaurant we have found so far. It simply blew our minds (well, also our credit card... but still cheaper than any comparable restaurant in the West and you would be hard pressed to find this kind of crossover/fusion executed at such a level anywhere in the west). Basically, their dishes fall into three categories - traditional Sichuan/Cantonese/Hunan dishes executed as they were meant for heaven, Mediterranean inspired Chinese and... molecular cuisine! I'd never thought to find this in China, so let's jump right into it...[Disclaimer: we did NOT eat all of this in one evening!]
Molecular Cuisine:
Salmon-Papaya Tartar served with milk that was poured over dry ice in a glass... that's what the bubbles are :) Ok, that was just for show, but a lot of fun. The tartar was maybe a teeny-weeny bit over-seasoned instead of letting the fish speak for itself (har, no wonder!)... but then I can only name a couple of restaurants worldwide that don't do this.
Chicken strips in chili oil, served with mushroom sauce. The gadget is the sauce, which is the thing sitting on top pf the chicken that looks like a mushroom head. Burst the bubble (I should stop writing when drinking, or drink more so my jokes get better) - really, it's a spherificated liquid :-P - and you have chicken in tasty sauce! Not that there was anything wrong with chili oil... actually, one of the other memorable dishes we had in Chengdu was lotus root served in orange juice with a layer of chili oil atop the juice. Yum! So simple, so effective, makes the perfect amuse gueule!
Peas with bacon next to Listerine... oops I mean, mint extract. This is really a play on the Italian pasta recipe for peas/bacon/mint, I believe, but since the mint extract had a foam and the peas were interlaced with starchy balls (tapioca? Chinese desserts seem to have an infinite variety of the little texture spheres, I could never figure out their purpose), it counts at least as crossover in my book, I mean, blog. Apart from the mouthwash, quite tasty.
Low-temperature salmon with nuts. The fish was great, apparently cooked at long time at low temperature, so very juicy and melty, just a little overwhelmed by the Chili-"Bolognese" (not sure that's what they were aiming for). The colorful bits'n'pieces are pickled radish and carrot, which pulled the dish back into the oriental direction. Couldn't figure out the foam... probably just skim milk.
Heavenly Chinese cuisine:
Tea smoked duck. Really, it's a classic. But I have never tasted so much actual tea flavour inside the duck meat. As a nice little extra, the duck was served on a tea tray with a tiny bit of 红茶 black tea on the side. The smoked, warm meat rested on crispy-fried tea leaves. The skin was perfectly crispy and not fat. Light BBQ aromas... Not sure whether this is Sichuan, Cantonese or Beijing style roast duck? I have seen tea smoked duck on menus all over the place. But if given the choice, I'd eat it here again any time!
Three steamers - from left to right - pork belly (just melting...) on 莓干菜 preserved vegetable, rice flour steamed pork, pork in sweet sticky rice. I am at a loss of words to describe the harmony of flavours of the sweet pork fat with the salty preserved vegetable or the satisfying richness of the sticky rice, drenched in molten pork fat. Now I understand why one of my Chinese friends loves the rice flour steamed pork... I guess the key is that the ground rice has the most surface, so it can absorb the most fat :)
The dish in front is goose with stinging nettle... not really that Chinese, there were no bones in the meat! And we could not figure out what the crunchy little worms were...
Rice pot - highly recommended by our waiter. It looks so simple, it is so simple, but ohmygod does it taste good. The whole thing was stirred with a dash of soy sauce before serving, so it just had the right saltiness to the steamed preserved meat's sweetness. The iron skillet was still hot, so the rice formed a crispy layer at the bottom... pork fat crispy :)
Spicy tea tree mushrooms. They were so spicy, we had trouble eating them, which makes me guess this was a Hunan dish (the restaurant actually has three different menus, and it's clearly indicated what is what, but hey! Do you expect me to sit there with a little notebook, writing down what we eat?! Well, I do, of course :-P, but occasionally I miss a detail)
OhgoodlordIthinkImdying mushroom soup. This baby was actually the most expensive item on our bill (500RMB) but man was it worth it! I have no idea how many little mushroom animals they had to kill for it, and I'm sure it also involved a phoenix or some other bird (we think the yellow colour comes from the bird's fat), three days of stewing, blood sacrifices and fortunate moon phases. The addition of morels and a black truffle (I'm still not putting it in the Italian-inspired category, because the truffle really wasn't that great and didn't add that much to the flavour - only to the bill) before serving didn't hurt either.
Crab mushroom soup served in clay tea pot, to be drunk from tiny tea cups. Another mesmeric flavour orgy.
Calligraphy set dessert - the "ink slabs" were really black sesame sponge cakes. The ink was black sesame paste, which you could use with the pastry brushes (filled with red bean paste) to paint on the waver-thin, flower scented crepes. Not sure what the sugar-sesame bars would represent in an actual calligraphy set.
Mh, I wonder... Can you tell I enjoy writing about food much more than about travel? :)
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