2020/08/01 Saturday Beijing

If reminded, I have forgotten that there is a dinner at noon. At 10:10, Lu Cai’s friend picked me up and went to Lu Cai’s new store in Sanyuanqiao Phoenix City. Mr. Wang Yijun, Teacher Qu Hao, and President Li Yaguang were already sitting in the yard drinking tea. He took two steps forward to say hello. Mr. Wang Yijun was eighty-eight years old. He was energetic and quick-thinking. Lu Cai was committed to the revival of Lu Cai. It was the right thing to invite masters and disciples Wang Yijun and Qu Hao as consultants. Mr. Wang Yijun is the dean of Shandong cuisine and a national treasure-level cooking master, and Mr. Qu Hao is the inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of Shandong cuisine. With these two immortals in charge, Lu Cai’s Shandong cuisine has finally found its roots. Together with Li Yaguang of the China Culinary Association The president’s guidance added another layer of momentum. I have been to Lu Cai's restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai respectively, and I think they are quite good. The Shanghai restaurant is even on the Black Pearl list. With the blessing of famous teachers and your own efforts, you can expect Lu Cai to have better achievements in the future.

It’s still a bit hot sitting outside, but when we talk, we forget about the temperature.

Taking a photo with Mr. Wang Yijun

The Lu Cai Phoenix store was preparing for internal testing. Mr. Wang Yijun lit the fire and started practicing.

Try the sea cucumbers made by the chefs. Braised sea cucumber with green onions is the most famous dish in Shandong cuisine. Mr. Wang Yijun is known as the "King of Sea Cucumbers". If Mr. Wang approves of it, this dish will pass the test.

Explain the technical points of sea cucumber roasted with green onion.

Give it a collective thumbs up

After completing a set of procedures, sit down and eat. Today’s main dish is a six-pound hairtail from Weihai. Some people say that thin strips of hairtail are more delicious, because the ones eaten in the coastal areas of eastern Zhejiang are the kind of hairtail that is shiny and not wide. However, the friends I have met in Dalian, Yantai, Weihai, and Qingdao all like the hairtail produced in their hometown waters, and they all think that the hairtail in Hong Kong is the most delicious. Discussing this issue with Mr. Qu Hao, Mr. Qu Hao said: "We have land and water and people, and the food we have been used to eating since childhood is the most delicious." The south likes tender and oily food, while the north likes fat and meaty food. Roughly consistent with the food style of the South, which is more refined, and the North, which is more rough, northerners still like hairtail with more meat.

The piece on my plate was so big that I was almost full after eating it.

Low temperature beef tongue

Pickled cucumber mixed with sea cucumber. I love sour flavors and the addition of pickles was a welcome addition.

Lucai mixed vegetables

Water shield sting heads

Crispy Laizhou Bay sea sausage

Donkey sausage with mushroom meat

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Baked Conch with Garlic Butter

Three Treasures of Cynomorium Deer

Fisherman's Grilled Shrimp

Fried Egg with Chives

Sauce Braised Swordfish

Braised Red Pumpkin

Honey Glazed Beef

Stone Pot Golden Garlic King Oyster Mushroom

Homemade Loofah

Taro casserole

Kongfu buns

Three-color ice cream. I really like the durian flavor.

Sea buckthorn ice cream. Sour and delicious.

After eating deliciously, we took a group photo

We left on time at 13:30 and rushed to a studio on the other side of Huosha Road. CCTV Channel 9 made a film about chefs. One of them was my friend Mike Roland, an American. The director asked me to talk about my views on Mike. Halahala said a lot, some of which I thought were quite wonderful, but I don’t remember what he said at the time. The director said he would give me the script, which is a great thing. Because during the interview, a lot of things I improvised and came up with on the spur of the moment. I spoke out as soon as I thought of it. If I were asked to organize those views now, I wouldn't be able to express them. So I hope the transcript can be given to me sooner to see what I actually said.

But there is one thing I still remember. The director asked me what I thought of Mike’s traveling around collecting stories, and I said I firmly support it, absolutely support it. Read thousands of books and travel thousands of miles, and experience it more profoundly while walking.

Mike can write a large book on American food culture, which means he has read a lot of books, but if he wants to make Chinese food, he must walk a lot in China and feel the local taste at the grassroots level, which is the Chinese taste. root. During the walk, there will be many collisions between Chinese and Western cooking concepts, and the sparks generated by the collision may be Mike's inspiration for cooking Chinese dishes. Collision means fusion, and the development of food advances in collision and fusion. This has been the case in history, and it is also the case today.