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GOURMET GUILIN
DOUGLAS THOMPSON EATS HIS WAY THROUGH PICTURESQUE GUILIN AND FINDS FIVE RESTAURANTS THAT ARE PUTTING THE TOWN ON CHINA’S CULINARY MAP
STILL WEARING
his towering hat, Chef Li Zhi Wei joined our table at Taste Made. Although only 24, Chef Li runs the kitchen and devises the menu here, at what is probably Guilin’s finest restaurant.
As he talked us though the local food, his own favourite dishes were brought out one by one. Don’t let appearances deceive. First on offer was a small bowl of pale broThwith three solitary mushrooms. It looked so plain that I did not expect it to be so tasty. But it was – and there was more to come.
WELL PLACED FOR DINING
The allure of Guilin is its incomparable scenic beauty. But an unexpected bonus for visitors is a city brimming with so much good food that you could spend days (and nights) just eating. Guilin is compact enough that you are never far from a great restaurant. Busy eateries are packed with people who are passionate about food. It is part of the cultural heritage and one of the cornerstones of social life.
According to Chef Li, China is home to eight great cuisines. Each one is distinctive and comes with a long, poetic history.
Guilin’s Guangxi Province is nestled between the homes of Hunan – where cooking is dominated by chillies, garlic and smoky flavours – and Guangdong, known for its subtle Cantonese cooking. Spicy Szechuan Province, home to another of the eight great cuisines, is also nearby.
A uniquely Guilinese cuisine did not really exist until recently. At the centre of a culinary crossroad, Guilin’s cooks have historically borrowed food concepts from their neighbours, but gradually, this has evolved into a unique style and repertoire of local cooking.
All of Guilin’s dishes share depThand a complexity of flavours. Some are wildly colourful and full of fire, others – such as the mushroom broTh– are visually unattractive, but their beguiling flavours unfold in the mouth. Cooks strike a balance between spicy, sweet, salty and sour. Using pickled vegetables and young bamboo, red chillies, forest mushrooms, pine nuts and pungent condiments, cooking here truly arouses all of the senses.
Some dishes form the foundation of local cooking. Fish from the Li River is a local speciality. You will find it steamed, smoked, baked and sautéed, oft en with pickled chillies and tender young bamboo.
Fatty pork, with the skin still on, is a key ingredient in many Guilinese specialities, and is often simmered or baked with taro root, potatoes, turnips or glutinous rice.
You may also see chuan shang gao or “boat cake”, a thick, chewy loaf that made rice more portable for fishermen of old.
On virtually every table, you will find small dishes locals call “the two precious ingredients”: a garlicky chilli paste and lightly fermented tofu aged in spicy brine, so rich and creamy it is easily mistaken for a soft cheese.
It’s customary to add a pinch of each to your food. Be forewarned, you may end up devouring the tofu before you order.
FRUITS OF THE GARDENS
Great food comes from bountiful gardens and visitors travelling through the nearby countryside to visit the area’s spectacular caves cannot help but admire the small farms along the way. Soil is rich and black, water is plentiful and clean, the weather is mild all year round. Little wonder that the region has become one of China’s principal vegetable gardens.
The sprawling Le Qun Market in the city centre is the best place to see what local farms produce for Guilin’s tables. It is dimly lit and hums with the din of commerce and a collision of aromas. This bustling tin-roofed supermarket is where locals come to buy vegetables, meat, nuts, spices and pastries. Among the abundance of fresh produce are herbs, forest mushrooms and exotic fruit such as rambutan and wild mango. Snack on steamed buns filled with bean paste or colourful cubes of gooey sweet rice cakes.
My own taste adventure in Guilin began with breakfast. I opted for a bowl of mi fen, a rice noodle dish. Fast, cheap and delicious, it is eaten throughout the day and as a late-night snack.
Handmade noodles are silky and fragrant, topped with fried peanuts, scallions, thin slices of meat and the shop’s secret sauce. Sauces alone can make or break a mi fen shop, so the recipes are often the subject of legend and intrigue. Two unassuming restaurants compete to set the standard; Shi Ji and Qiu Ling Rice Noodle Restaurant each serve thousands of bowls daily. Locals customise their noodles with toppings from a dozen dishes.
While street food is less important here than in many other Chinese towns, San Li Dian is one place where you can gorge yourself on succulent Xindu chicken stewed with clams, delicious dried crabs, and all kinds of grilled foods for just a few yuan.
However, give this place a miss if you are uneasy about coming face to face with something that might resemble the pet you left back home. Some stalls have cages filled with live wild things, including turtles, snakes and pangolin (scaly anteaters) – all destined to be ingredients.
TOP FIVE RESTAURANTS
It is difficult to find a really bad restaurant in Guilin. The town’s cooks are helping to put Guilin on China’s culinary map, and five great restaurants stand out for their quality and imagination. If the visions of their chefs are fulfilled, you may someday find boat cake in your local supermarket.
Guilin Good Luck Restaurant is one of many places to eat along Zhengyang, Guilin’s “walking street”, a major dining and entertainment centre. While much of the menu is Cantonese, master chef Huang Shao Bo is determined to elevate Guilin’s cooking to the stature of the eight great Chinese cuisines.
On my visit, he prepared extraordinary mashed potatoes covered with spicy meat sauce and a hot pot of meatballs in oyster sauce. These were mind-blowingly flavoursome, compared to the meat and potatoes mother used to make. The chef’s favourite is lightly smoked Li River fish steamed in a piece of hollow bamboo with chillies and pickled vegetables: a zingy combination of sour, spicy and smoky flavours. Two or more can enjoy an extravagantly decorated private room on the second floor.
Directly across the street is Soup City, one of the city’s oldest and most celebrated restaurants. While some of the soups are not very interesting, you will find many tasty native favourites on the menu. Cooking here is deeply rooted in the countryside where hard work requires sturdy food, and pleasing the eye is less important than exhilarating the taste buds.
A good example is the fatty pork in gravy, topped with glutinous rice steamed in a basket. Although homely, it is extravagantly rich. While you will find plenty of noodles and hot pot dishes here, my favourite was pork simmered with pickled baby bamboo and red chillies, so spicy and robust that I dreamed about it that night.
One could never confuse McFound Restaurant with an internationally famous fast food chain. Set in the shadow of Fubo Shan mountain, McFound is colourfully decorated with local pine furniture and Van Gough knock-offs.
Excitingly, this is one place in the world where it is alright to start your meal with dessert. While Chef Dong Yueqiang was busy in the kitchen, I ordered something hidden with in the many intriguing pancakes on the menu. Egg dumplings filled with sweet bean paste came to the table, scorching hot and sprinkled with sugar. These are similar to a doughnut and so light, they collapse in your mouth.
Chef Dong is rethinking traditional local dishes and making them lighter, more nutritious and more appealing to the eye. Portions are small and inexpensive so you can sample many of his creations at one sitting, including a salad of fresh tomato, pineapple and white raisins that is served nearly frozen.
Cu Cha Dan Fan (“Plain Tea and Simple Rice”) is the most traditional of the five Guilin greats. The name suggests the food might be bland, but that’s not the case. It tastes more like wonderful home cooking than restaurant fare.
Of 12 signature dishes, the humble deep-fried tofu dressed with a luxuriant and mildly spicy bean sauce stood out as one of the best, along with their pork stir-fried with zucchini and pineapple. Go with Mandarin-speaking companions if possible, as the menu is in Chinese only and has no photos.
Guilin is a small town, so addresses are given as below, rather than with the number and the street name. Ask your hotel concierge to write directions in Chinese for your taxi. Cu Cha Dan Fan: Located opposite the National Stadium. Chinese menu only. No credit cards. Guilin Good Luck Restaurant: Directly opposite Guilin Soup Restaurant, tel +86 (0) 280-8748. Reserve a private room one day in advance. English menu. Credit cards accepted. McFound: The restaurant has two branches, one near Fubo Shan and one in the National Stadium. No reservations. English menu. No credit cards. Qiu Ling Rice Noodle Restaurant: Next to the bank at the intersection of Liuhe Road and Putuo Road. No English menu. No credit cards. Shi Ji: On West Jiefang Road in front of the Niko Niko Do department store. No English menu. No credit cards. Soup City: Located next to the clock tower on Zhengyang, the city’s “walking street” between the Lijian Waterfall Hotel and Sheraton Guilin Hotel. English menu. No credit cards. Taste Made: 19 East Lijiang Road, opposite the Plaza Hotel, tel +86 (773) 588-0098, www.wdzz.com.cn. Reservations are advised. English menu. Credit cards accepted. |
Arguably the best dining experience possible in Guilin is Li Zhi Wei’s Taste Made, which has propelled Guilin cuisine into the 21st century. The young chef has created a breathtaking menu that marries time-tested dishes with fresh new ingredients not normally used in this part of China, such as lamb from New Zealand and veal from Belgium. Dramatically presented dishes contrast the décor, which is slick and minimalist. While the extensive menu makes choosing difficult, nothing is likely to disappoint you.
As Chef Li spoke about food and Guilin, I discovered what appeared to be a very plain dish in the parade of delicacies: an iron pot filled with beef sirloin and baked with thick, chewy boat cake. It turned out to be the single most delicious thing I tasted in this small city filled with remarkable food. How could I possibly leave?
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