Eating in Guangzhou? The Shanghai food writer says…丨City Monsoon

Written by Shen Jialu

In the days when Guangzhou was hit by heavy rain and hail hit holes, I happened to be there looking for delicious food with the famous cartoonist Xiao Lin.

After Xiaolin graduated from Zhongshan Medical College, he stayed at the school to teach, and determined to be \”a joke writer with the most beautiful calligraphy in the photography industry, and a gourmet with the best writing skills in the comics industry.\” He captures a detail, a scene, a nano-scale \”comet hitting the earth\” deep in the soul, and presents it to people in exaggerated and vivid images. The human world, old fire and beautiful soup, plus three or two lines of humorous footnotes, trigger a heart-pounding smile in the readers.

Lao Guang said: Food is in Guangzhou, and taste is in Xiguan. Then let’s lock in Xiguan. Cantonese people like to drink tea. When meeting in the morning, they will greet each other with \”Have you finished drinking tea?\” For tea drinking, the White Swan Hotel is the perfect choice. The young man booked a table at the White Swan on his parents\’ birthday. Chunxuan was in full bloom while having a drink. Tomorrow morning he would have \”one cup or two\” with his tea companion at the same place, and he would be in high spirits for a long time. We tasted his \”Four Heavenly Kings\” at White Swan Yutang Chunnuan – four-color shrimp dumplings, flowering barbecued pork buns, Terminalia sakima, and dry steamed siomai. When the barbecued pork buns came up, Xiao Lin said: \”Wait a minute, the blossoms on the steamed buns are so beautiful, I have to draw them.\” He immediately took out \”Eat Home Sheng\”, brushed a few strokes on the flower blossom paper, and wrote a few lines: The barbecued pork buns are about to be opened. Eat it right away. This is the steaming taste of life. Let the shrimp dumplings sit for a while and taste them when they are lukewarm. It is like an endless aftertaste of the past.

It was the Canton Fair, and there were a lot of foreigners in the teahouse facing the Pearl River. Phoenix nodded and laughed happily, presumably the business was going smoothly.

Next we tasted braised squab, black pepper baked crab, salt and pepper rich shrimp, native pig barbecued pork and curry rice at Qiao Mei Restaurant. Qiao Mei has several stores in Guangzhou, and the Sha Mian restaurant is the most popular. They use French Blanc Canouille squab, flavor it with a secret brine, blow the skin and fry it twice in the cooked food room. Serve it hot and tear it apart. Open, the fresh juice spurts out, and the meat is fragrant.

When the eighteen-spice, salt, and pepper Fortune Shrimp came to the table, Xiao Lin’s eyes lit up, and he took out the “Eat Home Sheng”, but before he started writing, he brutally broke the ruler-long Fortune Shrimp at the waist and cut the shrimp body. A strip of translucent paste appeared in the middle. I held it up and looked at the light. It was as smooth as ten thousand years of amber, soft and waxy, delicious, and fragrant.

Panxi Restaurant is a famous garden hotel in Guangzhou. More than 20 years ago, I attended a pen meeting organized by the Yangcheng Evening News and had a delicious meal here. The large garden with lush flowers and trees also left a deep impression on me. impression. This time I revisited my hometown and admired the calligraphy works of famous artists in the VIP room, as well as the well-preserved Manchurian windows, traditional wood carvings and glass etchings, and gained a deeper understanding of the aesthetics of southern Cantonese gardens. Panxi Restaurant is to Guangzhou what the Xijiao Hotel is to Shanghai. Its pictographic pastries have dominated Guangzhou for more than half a century. This time, they served Magpie Plum Blossoms, Green White Rabbit Dumplings, Golden Little Hedgehogs, etc. We were amazed. Can\’t bear to eat chopsticks. When the fried chicken came up, Xiao Lin still had to draw it, and he finished the work before I could finish the Tingzi porridge and water chestnut cake: \”The complete chicken shape is simple.Simple, easier to draw, the key is to clearly explain the section of bamboo tube inserted into the abdominal cavity. ”

I had an early morning at Guangzhou Restaurant I had heard about it, and this time I tasted its specialties such as winter melon cups, charcoal-grilled crispy rice pork, black olive steamed bream, golden-threaded ginger chicken, sweet-scented osmanthus sticks, roasted pork and stir-fried buckwheat buns. When US President Richard Nixon was hosted at the Jin Jiang Hotel in Shanghai, foreigners were amazed by the exquisitely carved winter melon cup, which could contain chicken, duck, ham, lotus seeds, ginkgo, etc. But they must be boneless, and a sprig of tuberose should be placed on the edge of the melon cup. You can no longer see winter melon cups in Shanghai restaurants.

The charcoal-grilled crispy rice pig is an upgraded version of the roasted suckling pig. , remove the bones of the suckling pig, stuff it firmly with glutinous rice, grill it for four hours, and then cut it into thick half-moon slices and serve it. The skin is crispy, the filling is soft, and the osmanthus sticks are rich in layers. One taste, pork tenderloin was cut into large pieces, marinated and then hung up and slightly blown, with a layer of fat one millimeter thick inside, wrapped in salted egg yolk, tied tightly into a tube, grilled and then sliced ​​and plated, in the same style as the traditional famous dish pheasant rolls. They are similar, but the flavors are very different. The steamed bream with black olives and stir-fried buckwheat with roasted pork use common local ingredients, but the combination of ingredients reflects folk wisdom and has a very friendly old Yangcheng taste.

The Shangxiajiu area still retains the arcades that have gone through vicissitudes of life. Walking through it, I can’t help but think of the Xiejie and Quxiang in Shanghai. I also saw the unique gates in Guangzhou’s residential buildings. The grille-type sliding door was invented to cope with the hot and humid climate environment. It also has an anti-theft function. Time has slowly flowed through the grille for a hundred years, and the catalpa wood crossbar has been rubbed and patinated. After opening the gate, grandma set up a pergola and set up a stall under the rose flowers, selling herbal tea and pig\’s feet and ginger.

Xiao Lin was in charge of painting, and Lao Shen was in charge of eating. Noodles and water chestnuts, Nan Xin’s double-skinned milk and Tingzi porridge, Shun Kee Ice Room’s durian ice cream, and the Yongxing roast goose that the host queued for two hours to buy. I truly feel that “eating in Guangzhou, taste exist Xiguan\” is true and true, and it has also moved many third and fourth generation inheritors of the intangible cultural heritage project of gastronomic skills. No matter how high their education and appearance are, they all regard gastronomy as a noble cause, worthy of it. I am worthy of the Zhiweike who come here to visit me. Author: Shen Jialu

Image and text: \”Urban Monsoon\”

Editor/Preliminary Review: Yue Shunshun.

Reviewer: Yao Yiying

Final review: Liu Kenbo

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