The owner of this restaurant is Li. His business card is printed with traditional Chinese characters: "Li founder, consultant and professor of applied mathematics." The reason why I wrote the identity of "professor" was because the old man said that he didn't want others to think that he was "just a chef".
"Swallow wing mat" on Li Jia's gourmet menu
There are only a dozen sets of Li Jiacai, each set has from 18 to 22 kinds of dishes. For example, imitate the "swallow-wing mat" that Cixi eats every day: the first dish is a side dish, including fried pickles, pickled cucumbers, shrimps and celery hearts, mustard tuber, Beijing bacon, dried chicken, amber peach kernel, sweet-scented osmanthus sugar lotus root, rose dates, fried red fruits and so on. The second course is cooked vegetables, including braised shark's fin, braised abalone, soft fried fresh shellfish, live fish in sauce, roast duck and anchovies in clear soup. The third way is soup and sweets, including birds, fish, eggs and chicken soup, scrambled egg soup, walnut sweet cheese and so on.
"Palace cuisine" is unusual.
One of the characteristics of Li Jiacai is that it does not use chemical raw materials such as monosodium glutamate, and the seasoning depends entirely on natural methods. There are no modern kitchen utensils in the restaurant, all are stoves. As a kind of "court flavor dish", it requires fine selection of materials and fine workmanship.
Angel lee only cooks dinner every day, and only sets a table every day. If you want to eat, you should book it a few days in advance, and the price is between 200-2000 yuan. For this table, the whole family should prepare from morning till night, waiting for the guests to come. Another difference between this restaurant and other restaurants is that ordering food is not allowed here, and you can eat whatever the host does. Even so, people still come here.
Li Jiacai is also very particular about side dishes. For example, cooking sweet and sour vegetables. How much sugar and vinegar should I buy back this time? When you're done, if you do it at this ratio next time, there will be problems, because there will always be some errors between one batch and another, so you have to taste it every time to find the acid-base ratio. If you don't have some knowledge of chemistry and metrology, ok?
And cooking. For example, fried pickles. The ingredients are carrots, magnolia slices, mustard heads, coriander and shredded ginger. There are more carrots, more reds, more coriander and more greens. The proportion of several dishes should be better, and the coordination and distribution of colors should also be paid attention to. In this way, when the dish is served, it will be colorful and present a beautiful shape. Among them is the knowledge that Lao Li learned in the Department of Architecture.
When the food is finished, you also learn to serve. You can't just pile up the dishes when they are served. Who is next to whom? How to match it? How to divide a big market and a small market? When frying, boiling, steaming, frying and frying, the color should not be too close and the color difference should not be too large. This aesthetic knowledge was also learned by Lao Li in the Department of Architecture. The cooking skills of these side dishes are unmatched by other dishes.
meteorically rise to fame
1984 On the National Day, Li Li, the second daughter of Li, signed up for the National Day banquet invitational tournament. In two hours, Lili cooked 14 dishes by herself and won the championship. Since then, Li's phone has been ringing off the hook, and she receives several letters every day, all of which encourage Li Li to open a restaurant. 1April, 985, Li Jia Restaurant opened in his home, and Pu Jie's "Li Jia Cuisine" was inscribed at that time.
After the opening of Lijia gourmet restaurant, there is only one table for dinner every day, and it must be booked three or four days in advance. In addition, because every dish takes a long time to prepare, in order to make a table of dishes, the family often prepares it in the morning until the guests come in the evening, so the restaurant also has a unique rule that you are not allowed to order-you can eat whatever the kitchen does. Even so, people still come here. 1986, the president of Merck Oil Company of the United States went to China to talk about the project and had a special meal with Li Jiacai. He is the first foreigner to eat Li Jiacai.
Thanks to Evans, then British ambassador to China, Li Jia's food really spread among foreigners. Evans went to the Li family for a meal. Li still remembers what he said after dinner: "Your restaurant doesn't need to advertise. I came as soon as I said it in the embassy district. " Since then, foreigners have flocked to China. Swiss ambassador to China Shu Aiwen praised Li Jia's food as the best in the world! Le Jie Jun, chief representative of Hewlett-Packard Company in China, said: I have two unforgettable memories of China: acupuncture and massage; The other is Li Jiacai.
Cooking also needs a cultural background.
Li, the owner of this restaurant, is a native of Zhengbaiqi and an authentic child of the Eight Banners. His grandfather was the commander-in-chief of the interior during the late Qing Dynasty.
Li studied several majors in college, and his favorite course was non-professional mathematics. Before retiring, Li was a professor in the Department of Mathematics in capital university of economics and business. In addition to teaching mathematical mechanics, he also teaches basic chemistry and analytical chemistry. But what really made him famous in the world was his hobby-cooking.
Li is an only child and his parents loved him very much when he was a child. As a "young master", he often goes to the kitchen to learn cooking from the chef, but the chef refuses to teach him. Li went to the kitchen while entertaining guests at home. At that time, the chef was too busy and often asked him for help. In this way, Li learned some real kung fu. Learning to enjoy life in cooking is Li's personal experience. So when he cooks, he often calls the children to the kitchen to help. Influenced by him, three daughters and one son all became the descendants of Li Jiacai.
Communicating with foreign diners in English is a great hobby of the elderly. Li said that when Bill Gates came on a tricycle, he said to himself in English, "You are a math professor. I didn't graduate from my sophomore year." The old man said modestly, "You are better than me, and you have practical experience." After Bill Gates returned to the United States, he specially sent a CD-ROM of 2 1 Century Computing as a souvenir.
Speaking of his English, the old man said: I practiced it in Fu Jen. From 65438 to 0939, Li was admitted to Fu Jen Catholic University run by foreigners in Beijing. Because "delicious", I want to know the essence of some raw materials and seasonings for cooking, so I chose chemistry as my major. At that time, Fu Jen Catholic University was mostly a foreign teacher, and all the classes were in English.
Li recalled that he learned to use spoken English skillfully there. Later, Li was admitted to the Department of Aviation Engineering of Beiyang University. After liberation, he responded to the call of the state and took Liang Sicheng as a teacher in Tsinghua University to study China architecture.
"Everyone comes to eat Li Jia's food," Li said to him. However, due to his rich experience and profound cultural background, Li can discuss a thing or two with him. Some foreigners often sum up in surprise: "You are by no means a chef." "To put it bluntly, this is also a glory for the country." The old man smiled and said, "You can't lose the value of China people in front of foreigners."