Fuchsia Dunlop

A quote from a Chinese-American friend in Hong Kong: ‘It infuriates me that people always think that Chinese food should be cheap – it’s racist, it’s ignorant. They don’t understand that Chinese cooking techniques are just as complex as those used in French cuisine. I have sent friends in San Francisco to really good Chinese restaurants – and these are people who know about food – and they have complained that “it’s so expensive”. Even in Hong Kong, you find some Hong Kong Chinese people who are willing to spend a lot on French food, but not on Chinese food.’ Continue reading…

Mango pancake at the Sea Treasure restaurant in Sydney

I was intrigued while in Sydney to find ‘mango pancakes’ an apparent staple of Chinese restaurants there. I’ve never come across this speciality anywhere in China, even in Hong Kong (which some chatters on the Web suggest is its place of origin). For those of you who haven’t come across them, mango pancakes consist of a normal sort of pancake stuffed with whipped cream and chopped fresh mango – delicious, but not typically Chinese at all.

Is the mango pancake the General Tso’s chicken or the fortune cookie of Sydney (or the whole of Australia), i.e. a Chinese diaspora creation that has become an indispensable part of a particular immigrant Chinese culinary culture?

I’d love to hear from any blog-readers out there who know more… Has anyone seen this kind of mango pancake anywhere else in the world? Hong Kong? Other Australian cities? Anyone have any idea when it started to appear in Sydney Chinese restaurants? Do all Cantonese restaurants in Sydney, or Australia, serve them, or just a few? Please let me know!

There’s a piece of mine in the Financial Times Weekend today, about the wonderful restaurants of Hangzhou.

And a mention of the paperback of ‘Shark’s Fin’ in the latest New York Times Book Review.

Some time ago I wrote a piece for the Financial Times about the Michelin Guide’s awarding of its maximum accolade, three stars, to a Chinese restaurant, for the first time.  While researching the article, I interviewed the director of the Michelin Guides, Jean-Luc Naret, on the controversy over whether one could judge Chinese and Western restaurants by the same criteria. Since I spoke to him, I’ve had one more niggling question, which is: with most Chinese restaurants, you really need to go with a large group to see what they can do, so aren’t they at a disadvantage when the judging is done by lone Michelin inspectors on repeated visits? Perhaps the inspectors don’t go alone, but it’s hard to imagine that their expenses budget would cover repeated visits with a party of people. If you visit a typical high-end Chinese restaurant alone, or with one dining companion, you are likely to be able to try only a few dishes, and to miss the excitement that comes from a really well-planned and diverse dinner for a group, which can be a kind of showcase for different cooking methods. In general, it is international hotels with Chinese restaurants that offer something equivalent to a Western tasting menu: could this explain the much-criticised focus on hotel restaurants in the inaugural Michelin Guide to Hong Kong and Macau? Hmm…

A couple more reviews of Ba Shan, the new London restaurant in the Bar Shu Group for which I work as consultant. Giles Coren, writing in the Times on Saturday, called it ‘A wonderful addition to my eating life… and a fresh new way to enjoy the most exciting food in the world’. Terry Durack, in the Independent on Sunday, found it ‘immediately charming’, and enjoyed ‘a meal of such distinct and interesting textures and flavours… a gastronomic tour of the provinces of China that Chinatown forgot’. 

by Danny Elwes

On Monday night I went to the awards ceremony for Restaurant magazine’s annual survey of the ‘World’s Fifty Best Restaurants’. Predictably, and I think deservedly, El Bulli took the top spot for the fourth year running, and Ferran Adria and his brother Albert were there to receive the award. But once again the only Chinese restaurant on the list was Hakkasan – in London! I’m a great fan of the dim sum at Hakkasan, and I love the design, but the best Chinese restaurant in the world?! Come on…

Time Out published a glowing review of Ba Shan, the latest restaurant in the Bar Shu Group, last week – five out of six stars! 

And Richard Vines, writing on Bloomberg.com, called it ‘the most exciting new Chinese restaurant I’ve tried in London since Bar Shu three years ago’. 

I have to say that I’m seriously addicted to the guo tie (pot-stickers) and the dumplings in chilli oil sauce.

The latest restaurant in the Bar Shu family, Ba Shan, has just opened – with me as consultant, once again. I’ve been involved in drawing up the menu, and for the last few months in intensive tasting (what a hardship!). The new place looks beautiful – it’s an old building in London’s Soho, just across from Bar Shu, with an interior that has been designed to evoke the atmosphere of an old Chinese county town, complete with puppet theatre!

We have a team of chefs specially brought over from different provinces of China, including Sichuan, Henan and Shaanxi, and the menu offers snacks and light dishes from all these regions. My current favourites are the Sichuanese spiced cucumber salad, the Xi’an pot-sticker dumplings (which I reckon are the best in London), the steamed lotus leaf buns stuffed with stewed pork, and the blanched choy sam with fragrant ginger and spring onion. But everything’s pretty delicious.

It’s a more casual restaurant than Bar Shu, and guests are invited to make up their own meal from a selection of small dishes, rather in the manner of Spanish tapas or Cantonese dim sum.

I hope to be able to post some enticing photographs in the next couple of days.

The New Year has seen an unhappy accident at Bar Shu, the Sichuanese restaurant in London for which I act as consultant. On Saturday 3rd January, a fire started in the extractor fans above the stoves, and spread throughout the ventilation system. Fortunately this happened early in the day, when the kitchen was almost empty and there were no customers in the restaurant, and no one was hurt. The damage, however, has been extensive, and the restaurant has been forced to close temporarily. Given the intense heat of the stoves during busy service times, it seems ironic that the fire started when one of the chefs was simply frying eggs for staff breakfasts.

It’s not clear exactly when the restaurant will be able to reopen – we are waiting for the insurance company to investigate the site, and then the damage needs to be fixed – but three months seems likely.

We are all incredibly sad about this event, and painfully aware that the closure will leave a gaping hole in London’s restaurant scene. We hope that regular customers will be able to survive for a little while without their usual fix of Gong Bao prawns, dry-fried beans or chicken with chillies. Sichuan food addicts might be relieved to know that they can find some of the characteristic flavours of the region in the more casual surroundings of Baozi Inn in Newport Place, the smaller sibling of Bar Shu. And we are currently working on the menu for the third restaurant, which will open sometime this Spring…

Do watch this space for news of Bar Shu, and of the new place.

A rubbery sea cucumber

I promised to write a little more on this story, and ended up doing a piece for the Financial Times, which you can read here. It was an interesting subject to research – and I had a very robust discussion on the phone with the director of Michelin guides, Jean-Luc Naret. I pushed him quite hard on the subject of rubbery things, which I honestly don’t believe most Europeans can appreciate (it took me years). His argument was that Michelin inspectors, as professionals, are duty-bound to understand the cuisines they assess – including alien aspects such as texture foods. Which conjures up a rather amusing picture of Michelin inspectors munching their way through piles of fish maw, sea cucumber and bird’s nest, trying to grasp the finer points of slitheriness…