If you were to name one of the most unpalatable famous dishes, West Lake Vinegar Fish might be on the list.

However, the West Lake vinegar fish may become more delicious.

Recently, in view of the continuous complaints about "not delicious", Louwailou, a famous Hangzhou cuisine restaurant, decided to avenge its shame by "exchanging fish".

Louwailou replaces the traditional West Lake grass carp with a strong earthy smell and loose meat with Quzhou Kaihua clear water fish that grows in a clean environment and only eats natural grass, thereby improving the taste.

However, can the reputation of West Lake Vinegar Fish be restored by just changing fish, especially in Hangzhou, which is known as a "food desert"?

Don't worry, in addition to changing fish, the officials are not idle either.

In March this year, the Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce issued the "Ten Actions to Promote the High-Quality Development of Hangbang Cuisine (Draft for Comments)", providing a bonus of up to 1 million yuan to encourage organizations to formulate Hangbang cuisine standards to improve Hangbang cuisine.

Dish brand.

Hangzhou cuisine, is it about to turn over?

01 How unpalatable is the famous Zhejiang dish West Lake Fish in Vinegar?

The turnaround of Hangzhou cuisine starts with the gourmet cult West Lake Fish in Vinegar.

Why is West Lake Vinegar Fish so unpalatable?

To give a simple example, some netizens said that in last year's phenomenal TV series "Meng Hua Lu", Zhao Pan'er, who opened a restaurant from Hangzhou to Kaifeng, one of the secrets of success was that he did not have the idea of ????stewing fish in West Lake vinegar.

The imaginary West Lake vinegar fish: a mouthful of vinegar fish, lingering in the smoke and rain of the West Lake.

Since the birth of West Lake Vinegar Fish in the Northern Song Dynasty, many romances, tenderness, and heart-warming scenes have been incorporated into this classic dish.

The West Lake Vinegar Fish in real life: one bite is like a mouth full of mud from the lake.

After taking two bites, it felt like the souls of all the fish that died in vain in the West Lake were churning in my esophagus.

After three mouthfuls, if a fish dies because of this dish, it is really not worth it.

No, under the hot Weibo search topic #西湖鱼鱼鱼了#, many netizens said that the problem with West Lake Vinegar Fish may not only be the fish, but also the use of sauces and cooking methods are worrying.

Some even joked that the West Lake Vinegar Fish may not be able to survive in this life, so it might as well be famous all over the world for being "unpalatable", which can be regarded as a regional specialty.

Of course, newcomers won’t be so eager to ban West Lake Vinegar Fish. Since it has won the title of the best Hangzhou cuisine and is sold from small shops on the streets to big stores on the list, there is nothing wrong with it.

It would be West Lake Vinegar Fish’s fault, it must be that I tasted it in the wrong way.

If it doesn't taste good the first time, eat it a few more times.

The most important thing is to break away from your own taste and aesthetic preferences. A dish with a long history must be tasted from the perspective of God, who is compassionate and compassionate.

Good guy, if you hold on to your "little family spirit" that's about to start, and taste it with a historical view of world unity, the result is still: unpalatable.

This is not what the introduction of West Lake Vinegar Fish says. It is a river fish dish. The deliciousness of grass carp is paired with the simple seasoning of sweet and sour sauce. Even without a drop of oil, chicken essence, MSG and spices, you can still taste the simple and complex flavor.

It smells like crab.

As a result, there was first a pungent sourness, then a sticky sweetness, and finally an earthy smell that could not contain the sweetness or sourness. The crabs felt unlucky after hearing this.

The joys and sorrows of people are not the same, just like how different people understand the taste of crabs. But at this moment, I suddenly understood the injustice suffered by this fish.

As a fish with dreams, who doesn’t want to be the steamed fish, pickled cabbage fish, boiled fish, squirrel mandarin fish or Wanzhou grilled fish that everyone loves?

It's just that the hemp rope is broken at the thinnest part, and the bad luck only finds the miserable fish.

02 It used to be so glamorous, but now it is so disliked. West Lake Fish in Vinegar originated from the Song Dynasty, and legend has it that it was originally called "Uncle and Sister-in-law Chuanzhen".

According to legend, there was a pair of Song brothers who made a living fishing in the West Lake.

My brother was killed by a bully, but my uncle and sister-in-law reported the matter to the police, but justice was not served.

In the end, Sister Song asked Brother Song to run away to avoid the bully's revenge.

Before leaving, my sister-in-law made a dish of West Lake Vinegar Fish for my brother. The sweetness was to remember the sweetness of my brother’s life when he was alive, and the sourness was to remember the sadness of his unjust death.

A few years later, the younger brother, who had been recalling the West Lake vinegar fish, became famous and returned to Hangzhou to avenge his brother's murder.

There are always some reasons why a dish can be worth the effort of eating it, such as it is so delicious that you will never forget it or it is so unpalatable that you will always remember it.

According to legend, this dish has always been delicious.

For example, in a selection of 36 Hangzhou dishes in 1956, West Lake Fish in Vinegar topped the list.

In state banquets, West Lake vinegar fish was once an important dish.

Food experts, leaders, and foreign guests will never insist that it is delicious without conscience.

So how did the West Lake vinegar fish become unpalatable?

According to Wu Shunchu, an inheritor of Hangzhou's intangible cultural heritage, a famous Hangzhou cuisine chef and a Chinese cooking master, West Lake vinegar fish may seem simple, but making it delicious requires a lot of skill.

For example, the fish must be about two kilograms of juvenile grass carp to have delicious meat; before killing the fish, it must be starved in running water for two days to remove the earthy smell; when braising the fish, the meat must be tightened over high heat, cut off over medium heat, and cannot be cooked for a long time; thicken the fish.

When making it, we only use sweet and sour soy sauce, ground ginger and starch. The fresh and sweet taste depends entirely on the proportion.

However, the West Lake vinegar fish in the store now is not very common. After all, the bigger the fish, the more profitable it is.