GUANGZHOU, Dec 19 — No trip to Guangzhou is complete without a meal at one of the city’s most iconic restaurants: the aptly named, Guangzhou Restaurant (广州酒家). Founded...
From tradition to innovation: Three essential Guangzhou restaurants you can’t miss for classic and creative Cantonese cuisine Wenchang chicken is a dish almost as old as Guangzhou Restaurant, which has been around since 1935.
— Picture by Ethan Lauas a first-time user . Exclusively for Malay Mail readers: Use codeGUANGZHOU, Dec 19 — No trip to Guangzhou is complete without a meal at one of the city’s most iconic restaurants: the aptly named, Guangzhou Restaurant . Founded in 1935, the restaurant’s original location at the crossroads of Wenchang Road and the famed Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street was under renovation when we visited. Thankfully, this is China, where any semi-successful restaurant will have more locations than you can count on your fingers. We opted for lunch at the Binjiang West Road location, which has separate floors for dim sum and à la carte dining. The speciality here is classic Cantonese cuisine, with highlights ranging from braised goose webs to their signature steamed Mandarin fish. The rich tradition of Cantonese barbecue, or siu mei, is another standout. Char siu, siu yuk, and siu ngo all make an appearance, with the roast goose stealing the show. A single portion came with crisp skin that shattered in our mouths and rich, gamey meat that filled our gullets with decadent goose fat.As delightful as the roast goose was, the restaurant’s true signature is the “Wenchang” chicken . Created in the restaurant’s early days, the dish is almost as old as the restaurant itself, named not for the chicken breed or the dish from Wenchang city, Hainan , but for the restaurant’s original home on Wenchang Road. The dish takes classic Cantonese white-cut chicken , deboned and sliced, and pairs each piece with a sliver of Chinese ham and chicken liver.While the chicken wasn’t the silkiest we’ve ever had, the real star was the interplay of textures: the soft, creamy liver, the streaky ham, and the firm, plump chicken.It’s the kind of old-school innovation that defines traditional banquet-style fare – precisely the sort of dish you’d expect to represent an institution like Guangzhou Restaurant. Roasted Wenchang chicken with flaxseeds is one of the signature dishes at Jiang by Chef Fei. — Picture by Ethan Lau Elsewhere, some restaurants are redefining Cantonese cuisine by crafting innovative dishes that still honour its culinary traditions. When the Michelin Guide debuted in Guangzhou in 2018, Jiang by Chef Fei – real name Huang Jing Hui – at the Mandarin Oriental earned a star. It became the first restaurant in the city to gain a second star the following year, a distinction it has retained ever since. Chef Fei is something of a rarity: a culinary celebrity in a country where chefs, despite the global prestige of Chinese cuisine, are not often under the spotlight. The most talked-about, must-try dish? Roasted Wenchang chicken with flaxseeds. This dish uses the actual breed of chicken from Hainan, a small, free-range variety fed on coconut and peanut bran. Prized for its tender meat, sourcing this chicken for what is essentially a simple roast dish mirrors the way chefs source specific cuts of beef for steak. Our half-portion featured incredibly juicy, succulent flesh and crispy skin, accompanied by a slightly sour chilli sauce reminiscent of those at chicken rice stalls here. Exquisite as it was, it didn’t quite capture my imagination the way a far less impressive-sounding dish did. A simply genius dish of wok-fried eggplant with fermented soybean, garlic, basil and pine nuts . Steamed Hele crab with minced pork . — Picture by Ethan Lau From the chef’s recommendations, it was the wok-fried eggplant with fermented soybean sauce and basil that stole the spotlight. A more accurate description? Simply genius. The soft, almost smushy eggplant wore a lively green hue and was laced with all the elements of a classic Genovese pesto: finely diced basil, whole cloves of garlic, and tiny jewels of pine nuts. The fermented soybean sauce acted as both cheese and olive oil, providing salinity and cohesion. The result was a clever pastiche to pesto without simply being eggplant stir-fried in pesto.This dish pairs the rich, oily roe and meat of prized Hele crab with a humble Cantonese pork patty, requiring immense skill to steam both to perfection without overcooking. Yet, the creativity and execution behind the eggplant dish won me over. That is how you make a vegetable dish the star. Such creativity is also on full display at Bingsheng Mansion , the upscale branch of the Bingsheng group, which boasts 11 locations in Guangzhou and six in Shenzhen. The flagship restaurant, located on Xiancun Road in Zhujiang New Town, has held a Michelin star since 2018. The ‘siu mei’ platter at Bingsheng Mansion . The crispy ‘char siu’ is unlike anything you’ve ever tasted . — Picture by Ethan Lau While the extensive menu is brimming with inventive dishes, the two I’ll highlight are also available at Bingsheng Taste locations, of which there are four in Guangzhou.platter with black char siu, crispy char siu, and roasted goose in Bingsheng style . This style of dark, caramelised char siu, rich and fatty, isn’t common in Guangzhou or Hong Kong, but for most Malaysians, it’s our bread and butter. It was very much like eating at Char Siew Yoong, just in a much pricier setting. But the real revelation was the crispy char siu. These cubes of pure fat were encrusted in breadcrumbs and sugar, making them sweet, rich, and utterly indulgent. It’s nothing like any siu mei you’ve had before.Surprisingly, the most-talked-about dish at the Bingsheng group isn’t actually a dish, but a dessert. Their signature polo bao is said to be unmissable – and it absolutely is. These buns are gargantuan, light, and pillowy, and you’re given gloves to tear into them, revealing a sweet pineapple jam inside. It’s a fun play on the beloved bun’s name, as “polo” refers to the pineapple-like appearance of the butter and sugar crust, despite containing no actual pineapple. This wonderful treat is the perfect answer to the perennial question: “Why doesn’t polo bao have any pineapple?” At Bingsheng, it does. And it’s delightful.Haizhu District, Guangzhou City,
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