Old Yantai street view
The old street of Cabalet Street in Yantai, Shandong, Republic of China, is full of restaurants and bars
After the opening of Yantai in 1861, economic development, population increased, commerce developed, hotels and pubs increased day by day, and the catering industry was very prosperous by the end of the Qing Dynasty, and it was more prosperous from the beginning of the Republic of China to the 1920s and 1930s.
<h1>Celebrities open famous shops</h1>
From 1912 to 1937, before the "Lugou Bridge Incident", it was the most prosperous period of Yantai's culinary industry. Gonghe Lou, Dongpo Lou, Luming Garden, Songzhu Lou, Da Luo Tian, Qunying Lou, Zhifu First Floor Fan Restaurant, Bohai Fan Restaurant, Zhongxing Lou and other restaurants are the most famous; Tonghe Lou, Hengsheng Garden, Fuyuanju, Fushun Hall, Ruyi Hall, Fuchun Garden, Qunxian Lou, Dechun Residence, Yanle Zhai and so on, each with its own characteristics. Most of these hotels are concentrated around Jiande Street, Taiping Street, Guangdong Street and Rulin Street of Dangui Theater under Yantai Mountain.
According to a june 1935 statistic, there were 283 large and small restaurants and 53 restaurants in Yantai. The hotel has strong funds, standardized management, and good service, and each hotel has a famous chef who specializes in cooking (also called façade dishes). And the big hotels opened by celebrities are even more popular. Like the shareholder of DongpoLou Hotel is Yantai celebrity Zhang Tongren, he is only Chu people, in the early years of the Republic of China, in Jiande Street investment in the opening of Dongpo Lou. Hired Chen Hengru, who understands management and management and is himself a famous chef as a stove, as a manager, and hired Zhang Baoshou and Jia Baoshan, who are good at lobby management, as the head of the hall. Dongpolou cooking is mainly braised and braised. Chen Hengru's best dishes are braised sea cucumber, roasted five shreds, and braised chicken slices.
In particular, braised chicken slices are one of the famous dishes of Dongpo Lou. To make this dish, you must use chicken breast meat, remove the fascia, slice into chicken slices, then cut into chicken slices about half a centimeter square, sprinkle with mung bean starch, and then use a mallet to beat the chicken slices into two centimeters square slices, and then add a variety of spices to braised. The key to pounding chicken slices is to use even force and not to break. The thickness is moderate, too thick is not beautiful, too thin and fragile. This dish is white and shiny, soft and smooth, salty and delicious, and the aftertaste is timeless.
Da Luo Tian is also a well-known hotel in Yantai. The shareholders were Cui Baosheng, who was the president of the Yantai Chamber of Commerce, and Zou Zimin, the president of the Chamber of Commerce in the later Japanese and pseudo-Japanese periods. The two managers are Zhang Fengfeng and Lin Shufu, who are cooks Qu Hongyu and Wang Songling, and the heads of the hall are Zhong Yuli and Zhao Xiqing. Da Luo Tian's specialties include fried eight pieces, fried chicken, fish fillets, shrimp fillets, steamed gagi fish, chicken mushroom eight treasures and chicken mushroom shark fin soup.
Local celebrities and dignitaries who have passed through the port have all eaten in Da Luo Tian, such as Feng Yuxiang, Zhang Zongchang, Han Fuyu, Liu Zhennian, Zhang Binchen, commissioner of the Yantai Special Administrative Region, and Zhang Zhijiang, director of the Central Guoshu Museum, all of whom have been guests of Da Luo Tian, and some are still regular guests.
It is said that in addition to the hot dishes that Da Luo Tian excels, the craft of smoking dishes is also unique. Not only smoked fish and bacon, but also smoked shrimp, smoked chicken offal, smoked pork head meat, smoked pork liver and so on. Da Luo Tian once passed down two smoking methods, one is to make an iron grate that is basically the same size as the pot stove, put the smoked fish or meat on the iron grate, and then buckle the iron pot, use pine sawdust and pine tower (Yantai people used to call it "pine fire cage") to light in the stove, and then sprinkle a small amount of brown sugar to make the smoked fish meat colored and flavored, and the appearance is burnt butter. This technique is said to have been learned from the Beijing Hotel.
There is also a smoking method, which is often used by Lin Shufu, the chef of the Great Luo Tianpao Stove. Ignite the fire in the stove, put the millet bran in an iron pot and add brown sugar to stir-fry, after smoking, put the iron grate into the pot, code the smoked food, and then buckle a pot on it, after 5 to 10 minutes, smoke into the pot. The best grain bran is the chaff off from the millet planted in the spring, because the bran of the millet planted in the spring is oily, and the smoked fish and meat are fragrant, bright in color, and have a very good taste.
In order to attract customers, Da Luo Tian has quite a high skill. There are many good Peking operas in old Yantai, so Luo Tian invited Mr. Zou Benshou, a violinist who has been playing huqin in Yantai for more than 20 years, to play the piano for rich patrons who are good at singing a few mouthfuls to help the wine xing. Although Zou Benshou was the resident organist of Da Luotian, he also advertised in the Donghai Daily, saying that other hotels could also invite him to perform, "as you go, the wind and rain are not wrong." For each stretch, a dime of the national currency is charged." For a time, this practice became fashionable in restaurants.
<h1>Famous shops have stories</h1>
Old Yantai restaurant, famous chefs have a lot of famous dishes, the competition is also fierce, if once with the celebrities, eat out the story, it will become the store's golden signboard.
Zhang Yu Company, photographed around 1920
In the past, there was a story circulating in Yantai Street that in the autumn of 1927, Zhang Zongchang went to Yantai to inspect, went to visit Zhang Yu Company, and saw the inscription of Dr. Sun Yat-sen hanging above the high hall, "Pin Chong Li Quan", and wanted to follow suit. Zhang Zongchang did not understand the text and ink, let the secretary think of words, for half a day did not think well, Zhang Zongchang said: Forget it is really difficult, our old Zhang is a soldier, also inscribed four words, "drunken lying on the battlefield." The accompanying person could only laugh and applaud, even if he dared to say more.
Zhang Zongchang felt good about himself, saw that it was noon, and on a whim, proposed to see the people's feelings and find a restaurant to eat. General Manager Zhang Yu quickly sent someone to bring the best brandy and accompany him to Guangdong Street. Walk into a restaurant called Qianfa Lou. When the treasurer and his men heard that Zhang Dashuai had arrived, they panicked, feared that they would not serve well, and lost their heads. This Qianfa Building opened at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the chef of the palm stove is called Yu Hao, there is a nickname called big braid, in this palm stove for more than ten years, fried, slippery, bursting, stir-frying, steaming, grilling, everything is proficient, in Yantai is also very famous. Zhang Zongchang personally ordered a bad fish fillet.
Zhang Zongchang was a famous general of wine and meat
Zhang Zongchang is a famous wine and meat general, eating a wide range of food, this dish to satisfy him, it is not easy. Yu Da Braid did not dare to be sloppy and used the ability to look after the family. He bonelessly cut the tooth sliced fish into slices, mixed the starch and egg whites, mixed them with the fillets, and dragged them through the warm oil in a stir-frying spoon. The key is to soak the lees in wine, then boil the wine with the broth in the spoon, add ginger, salt, sugar and other condiments, add fish fillets, wet starch, drizzle sesame oil to make the soup bright, and pour the spoon into the soup plate at the bottom of the fungus pad. After being served to the table, everyone looked at it, the fish fillets were white, the fungus was dark, and the soup was crystal clear, like snow covered with moss, and it was elegant.
Everyone respectfully let Zhang Zongchang taste first, the fish fillets are soft and smooth, melt in the mouth, the incense is very fishy and very delicious, Zhang Zongchang praised it, and immediately ordered another plate. He gulped down the brandy, ate it three times five divided by two, and then asked for plate after plate, non-stop, and the table of eight people ate eleven plates in one breath. Zhang ate happily, Shi Xing's hair, and casually said a few words: "Drinking Zhang Yu's brandy, eating the bad fish of Qianfa Lou." Today old Zhang Li was happy, drunk on the battlefield big husband. This Zhang Dashuai used the inscription of "drunken lying on the battlefield" here!
After the meal, zhang Zongchang was ordered to check out, and it was said that Zhang Zongchang could personally say the checkout at the restaurant, which was never done before, and rewarded the stove head with ten yuan in large braids. The treasurer of Qianfa Lou is very brainy, and the next day he used red paper to write Zhang Zongchang's poems and rewards into a signboard, created in front of the door, for a time, the guests were in the door, and every visitor must order "Zhang Dashuai fish". Since then, bad fish fillet has become the first signature dish of Qianfa Lou.
There are also many Western restaurants in Old Yantai Street, the most famous of which are the First Floor Fan Restaurant and Bohai Fan Restaurant on the first floor of Zhifu. The first floor of Zhifu Restaurant opened on April 18, 1933, at the old Telegraph Office Street (now Jiande Street), and the telephone number at that time was No. 83. The shareholders are Wang Mingzhi, the treasurer of Yantai Xinshengxiang Silver, Zhang Huichen, the manager, and Sun Shengquan and Zhao Xizuo, the cooks of the stove. Bohai Fan Restaurant, set up in Shuntai Street, opened on May 18, 1934, the manager is called Qu Xiangfu.
In addition to these two large restaurants, there are also some small Western restaurants. Most of these restaurants are for foreigners living in Yantai, as well as American soldiers who come to Yantai every year to rest, as well as dignitaries and rich people who want to change their tastes.
Usually, a salad cold dish is served first, mixed with tomatoes, sour cucumbers, and red sausages. Add another soup dish, cabbage soup, corn soup, or oxtail soup. There are also several big dishes, fried steak, pork chops, grilled gaj fish, roast chicken, and chicken curry rice. End with a beet with pudding, fruit, and a cup of coffee. Breakfast also had milk, butter, bread, french fries, grilled sausages, fried eggs etc.
Western restaurants can also do Lu cuisine, which is suitable for the tastes of foreigners, and the business is also quite prosperous. These two famous Western restaurants all went out of business after the Japanese invaded Yantai. Many of the famous Da Luo Tian and Jiaodong Restaurants have also closed down. The restaurants that can persist are also dismal operations, downsizing, selling at a small profit, and changing the way they operate, starting to launch sets of rice. For example, the Taiping Chun Hotel on West Taiping Street advertised: "One bowl of rice noodles and meat per set, two bowls of dry rice and three yuan." A plate of sauced meat, two bowls of Fukuyama noodles, and two or two or three yuan of dried white. A plate of stir-fried meat and a bowl of ravioli for three yuan. ”
During the Japanese occupation period, Yantai residents limited the supply of white noodles, only a few catties per household per month, basically sorghum noodles, corn flour and hybrid noodles. Even if the restaurants are lowered, ordinary people do not have the money to go to the restaurants, and it is difficult to eat a full meal.
<h1>There was flavor in the taverna</h1>
Mr. Qu Zhengmin wrote in "Yantai Past Events" that "in the 1920s and 1930s, there were more than five people in Yantai: there were many blind people telling fortunes along the street, many dogs, many mule and horse shops, many barber shops and bathhouses, and many small restaurants and food stalls." Many small restaurants on Yantai Street specialize in noodles, such as bun shops such as Gou Bu Li and Mei Chun, Dumpling Restaurants such as Sanhe Garden and Sanyi, Tongyi Wonton Restaurant, Tongshun Noodle Restaurant, etc. There are also restaurants such as Sansheng Garden, Dongfa Garden, Yiyi Village, Taihe Hall, Zhentong, Guangheju, Sihechun, Donglaixing, Liansheng, Tongfadong, etc. Although they cannot do large banquets, the dishes are quite delicious, very famous, and the price is also very cheap.
Ordinary people have important guests coming, so they go to such restaurants to call "four dishes and two pots of wine" and eat dumplings or noodles. A la carte will not be Shanghai ginseng, abalone, prawns, four dishes generally order "fried shredded meat, fish fillets, southern fried balls, stir-fried mix", half a silver dollar can not be used, three or five people drunk dizzy, eat comfortably. This kind of restaurant is also a door for diners.
Yantai by the sea, rich in seafood, large and small hotel pubs, naturally good at cooking seafood, pay attention to what kind of seafood with what dishes: yellow croaker with snow vegetables, knife fish with artemisia, gagi fish with toon, jellyfish with cabbage, catfish with eggplant, eel with garlic, mackerel with leeks, mackerel with Chinese cabbage, unique flavor, not tired of eating; hair clams with spinach, clams with cucumbers, jellyfish with tofu, flower clams with peppers, shrimp skin with radish, shrimp sauce with tofu, crab with ginger perilla vinegar... These collocations have been passed down to the present, and if you ask a housewife on the street, you can probably say that the head is the Tao, as if it were common sense.
Yantai people are good at wine and good at drinking. In the 1920s and 1930s, Yantai already had a number of large and small pots. The most famous are three people, one Hongli Pot, in the west of North Road; the second, Donglai Pot, which was previously outside the east gate of the city and moved to yantai Daoyin Office South (now Shifu Street) around 1925; and the third Taidong pot, which opened in July 1933, is located in Xixuziwai Street (now West Street). These pots are made of sorghum as raw materials, specially brewed white dry wine (old shochu), and also brewed with mung beans and other drinks such as "Shi GuoGong, Wujia pi, isochrome wine, rose yin, chen banana dew" and so on.
The price is also quite fair, the old shochu is seven points and one pound in a corner, and the color wine is three or five points and one pound in one corner. At that time, the implementation of the sixteen-two system per kilogram, five copper plates can drink two or two old burns, most of the people can afford to drink. There are many such taverns, mainly selling alcohol and stir-frying vegetables without moving the fire. There are those who sell rice wine, there are also those who sell white dry liquor (lao yaki), and they also sell daily necessities.
Such a tavern does not have much money, and the purchase is first credited, and then the bill is checked out after the sale. Taverns are mostly open in the streets and alleys, a treasurer hired a young man, there are also mom-and-pop shops, front shops and back houses. Most of them are more than ten square meters of gatehouses, with two or three eight immortal tables and a few spring bells. On the counter were several small ceramic jars for wine, next to a square plate of wood or porcelain, on which were placed many ceramic wine glasses and tin pots for scalding wine, as well as wine trays used to sell wine, one or two, two or two or half pounds. It is also available in wood or tin.
The dishes for serving wine are very simple, such as pine blossom eggs, salted duck eggs, spiced peanut rice, sausages, in winter there is meat skin jelly, as well as peanut rice and soybeans with salt, green onions, ginger, large ingredients cooked together, put on a small plate to sell to customers, is also a good dish.
Customers ask for a plate of wine dishes and taste them slowly. There are also dishes brought with you, buy some roast meat, haggis, beef offal, donkey offal, fried peanuts outside, take it to the tavern to drink half a pound of eight or two, the treasurer will also be well entertained, never neglect the guests. There are also those who drink "back-up wine", enter the door to hit two or two, lean on the neck and belly, pull out the legs and go, come and go in a hurry.
There are also many shops that make their own rice wine, the more famous ones are Tianshengju, Yongquanju, Sanxingju, Hopsonju, Yongshengju, Yuquanju, Deshengju, Zeng Shunju and so on. During the Republic of China period to make yellow wine, the raw materials need to be millet, with millet milled out of rhubarb rice fifty-two three pounds, can brew one hundred and twenty pounds of yellow wine, when sold, with a special tin pot, half a pound of "single burning" tin pot can hold two hundred and forty "burning" (pot) a little more, with a pound of "double burning" tin pot can hold up to one hundred and thirty pots. If you exceed this number, the wine produced will not be strong or pure. Restaurants regard quality as greater than the sky, and dare not be shoddy, so that they can operate for decades, and even generations of people are engaged in this business.
A scene in an old Yantai tavern
<h1>The stalls are all coolies</h1>
There were a lot of small food stalls in those days, and it was a rice market for the poor. There is a small stage, Dangui Street, outside the east gate of the city, and haiphong camp, especially in the small square in front of the Fujian Guild Hall, there is a street called Obanhui Street (later changed to Yulan Street), and there are many small rice shops distributed around the square, one after the other, selling slices, fire food, pot cakes, steamed buns, porridge, and cheap dishes.
In Dangui Street and Obanhui Street, there are more than a dozen people selling cattle, donkeys, sheep offal and old soup pots, and more on both sides of the southwest river, up to more than twenty at the most. All year round, each family has a big pot steaming hot and fragrant.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Yantai Street did a lot of this business. Because of the increase in the number of foreign populations, these foods are cheap, and they have oil and water, are hardy in winter, and are hungry in summer, which is suitable for people who work as coolies, and people in this port also like to eat.
Street food stalls
Yantai is surrounded by rural areas with livestock resources. Another important resource was that from 1928 to 1937, the U.S. Pacific Fleet in the Philippines came to smoke and escape the heat every May and left in September and October. Every year, as few warships as few as a dozen, as many as more than thirty, three or four thousand sailors, to live in Yantai for four or five months. Their diet is mostly supplied by Yantai. In particular, the American soldiers could not do without beef, and after slaughter, the whole net cow was removed from the five organs, and the procurement staff hired a large sampan to transport it to the warships.
The American sailors ate only beef and steak, two or three thousand people a day, and the remaining raw beef bones and beef were sold a lot. The compradors are all Chinese, know the local market, and see business opportunities. They transported these things to the docks in dozens of sampans every morning, and wholesaled them to the stall owners who opened cattle and old soup pots, and insiders called wholesale "catching soldier boats". Therefore, at that time, yantai street opened leather shops and did leather business, because there were many cowhides.
Most of the people who come to the rice market stalls to eat and drink beef and mutton soup are coolies, including pulling foreign carts, rowing cars, and pushing trolleys, carrying coal workers, idle at the docks, catching big carts, shaking sampans, and peasants who have entered the city. Spend three copper to buy a slice, go to the old soup pot and spend four copper to buy some beef and mutton offal, come to a large bowl of old soup, soup can be added with drinking, and then put coriander or green onions, add some salty salt to some vinegar, you can also eat a full meal. Coolies can earn 300 yuan a day, and for them, this is the cheapest good meal.
Text / Jiang Zhenyou
Originally published in Yantai Evening News - Yantai Street