I vaguely remember that it was around 2010, and there was a? The court sci-fi drama? A friend of mine who worked on the show invited some of us who hadn't met for a long time to dinner in a courtyard in Beijing's second ring road.
The courtyard is very large, no door plaque, quiet and elegant, like a large family home. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to find the right one, but I'm sure you're going to be able to find the right one. The first thing I did was to look at the bill when I was checking out, and I saw that it was the equivalent of two months' salary for a salaryman.
From then on, it?
Private? This word in my heart formed an inherent concept: high-income people consumption place, star-infested, low luxury, not pro-people? In the next a long time, when I go out to travel, encountered ? Private dining? The private dining room is a place where you can find a lot of food and drink. Private dining? will avoid far away? It was only in the past two years, when I traveled to Zhejiang, that I was able to re-consolidate my understanding of private dining. Private Dining? s impressions.
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There is a big difference between Beijing's private cuisine and that of Zhejiang. Most of the famous private cuisines in the city of Beijing originated from the imperial palaces of the Ming and Qing dynasties or from the families of high-ranking officials and eunuchs? private assets? , folk and not popular, to cite a commonplace example:
Old Beijing snack pea yellow, delicate and small, melt in the mouth, because the Empress Dowager Cixi like to eat, only to let the Imperial Household Restaurant with the seasonal top quality beans to be improved to, and in the folk, the pea yellow in a very long time is in the temple fair to have something. So in Beijing there? Imperial food? and "Tribute Food" in Beijing. Tribute? In Beijing, there are names like "Imperial Food" and "Tribute Food", and in the Forbidden City, there is also "Little Kitchen". The Little Kitchen? There are also places like "Little Kitchen" in the Forbidden City. After the retirement of the palace chef, in the noble and prominent officials on the corner of the street to open a private kitchen, living in the ordinary people can not reach the level of consumption. Even today, it is still a very? niche? something. In Zhejiang, the concept of private food is very different.
Zhejiang since ancient times, the land of the Hundred Yue, intricate water systems, complex landscape, although there is a deep history and a long history of food culture, but they are mostly with the Central Plains hinterland mingling, collision to the, ? Deeply rooted? There are fewer things that are y rooted. The emperor is far away, the people of zhejiang from the snack to the big things, to the emperor there instead of become? Tribute. For example, Quzhou Kaihua Long Ding tea, the people picked on the mountain to drink at home, Liu Bowen to Zhu Yuanzhang brought back once, and since then it has become the tribute tea of the Ming Dynasty.
The biggest difference between Zhejiang cuisine and Beijing is here. In Beijing, one said? Palace side of the food? , that is bound to be exquisite high-grade, superior flavor; while in Zhejiang, good food but are hidden in the folk people's kitchens, followed by ? Up? to the government.
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The east coast of Zhejiang, west of Zhejiang by the mountains, the old transportation is closed, the people are barren, had to rely on the sea to eat the sea, the mountains to eat the mountains. In this driving trip in southwest Zhejiang I found that Taizhou, Shaoxing, Quzhou, more than 90% of the area are mountains, the old deserted and few people, in order to be able to eat a mouthful of rice, the cooks must rack their brains to show their hands. Therefore, in Zhejiang, many cooks hidden in the city, the craft may be equipped with the conditions of private cooking. Today, Zhejiang as one of the country's largest economic province, those who ate from the taste of childhood gradually from the table into the five-star restaurants and other large halls, or by the chef after the transformation of the ? private flavor?
So Zhejiang's ? private food? I understand this way: eat used to the taste of their own mother's home, and then go to eat to eat someone else's mother's taste.
This is also the biggest benefit of Zhejiang private food: friendly, people can afford to eat. There is a picture of the truth, sun a few of my previous trip in southwest Zhejiang on the road to eat private restaurants.
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Linhai City, Zhejiang: Hutchison Private Cuisine. Linhai is a small, ancient city, and this private kitchen is on the old town's thousand-year-old Ziyang Street. The owner of Hutchison Private Cuisine is the only person in Linhai City to be awarded the ? Chinese Culinary Master. He is one of only three chefs in the entire city of Taizhou who have been awarded the title of Chinese Culinary Master. Their menu is complete, with Linhai's specialties such as Egg White Lamb's Tail, Bad Soup, Wheat Shrimp, Wheat Fat, Wheat Cake, etc. You can enjoy all of them at once in this one shop. In this one store can all be eaten at once, after this chef's improvement, the flavor of childhood to become more? The chef has improved the flavors of childhood and made them more thoughtful. and the price is affordable, per capita is not more than a hundred dollars. In his house ate a unique food, called prune soup.
Linhai is one of China's rare? The township of prunes is one of the few in China.
Linhai is known for its abundance of ping-pong ball-sized plums, a fruit that has a short life cycle, surviving only about 20 days a year, and fills Ziyang Street with tourists in late June each year.
And this plum soup, which has no extra ingredients other than egg whites, honey and fresh plums, can only be eaten in the chef's home during those 20 days, making it a truly private dish. private cuisine?
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Tiantai County, Zhejiang Province: Hua Maidi Seafood Private Cuisine.
This is a restaurant you stop by on a trip to the Guoqing Temple in Tiantai. Guoqing Temple is a famous 5A-level temple scenic spot, free of admission, excellent feng shui, it is said that wishing and worshiping Buddha is very spiritual, and there is a constant stream of tourists throughout the year.
Guoqing Temple has brought fire to the neighborhood of a host of lodging, hotels, restaurants, including this one flower Mai Di seafood private dishes ranked in the top ten of the food list in Tiantai County. Prices are still affordable, per capita but 80.
There is a kind of burrito here, the flavor is very chic, a bit like the northern spread pancakes, but the texture is more than pancakes to the sinewy, wrapped in a number of kinds of wild vegetables, is a folk snack? Wok La Tou? It's an advanced version of the folk snack "wok-la-tou".
The roast pork is also a masterpiece, every table must be ordered, the table was snatched up, I only had 3 pieces, fat but not greasy, there is actually a little bit of the texture of roast goose.
In addition to braised pork, most of the other dishes are Tiantai's local specialties, screws in soup, crystal cake, Tiantai eight treasures rice, Nanshan bean noodle soup? The flavors really use their hearts, moderately salty and sweet, not too heavy and not too light.
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Shaoxing, Zhejiang: Xinchang Jufuyuan.
Memories of Shaoxing food being famous? Salty and smelly? Shaoxing flavor? This store is a hundred years old courtyard transformed, the old is an elementary school, many here? Elementary school graduates? are coming back to relive their childhood memories and flavors one more time.
What impressed me was the plate of small sweet potatoes, produced in a place called Dongming Township, southwest of Xinchang County, a small, thin one, skin red heart yellow, sweet and soft.
Another particularly tasty potpourri, fellow travelers said, this is? The taste of childhood of the southerners? Look at the shape, it should be the first rice spread in the bottom of the pan baked into a deep circle, crispy and cooked carry out buckle on the plate, poured with sweet and salty juice.
When you eat it, use a mallet to break it into pieces and stack it on a plate. The unforgettable flavor of the rice and the richness of the sauce mixes together in a way that the machine-pressed, neatly bagged potpourri doesn't compare.
Later, one of my friends from Jiangnan saw the picture and said:
This dish is also common in Jiangsu, often just baked out of the pot on the table, and then sweet or salty soup poured on it, only to hear the 'snorting' sound, accompanied by the fragrance of the potpourri on the diffusion of the dish is also known as the 'heaven and earth a sound'.