I have recently opened a lot of good restaurants in Hangzhou.
There's Wolfgang, who specializes in tomahawk steak, Amber Ciel Po, who claims to be the ceiling of Hangzhou's French cuisine (though I'm skeptical), and Cai, a good wine that makes Chaoshan cuisine Fine Dining.
Today I will write good wine good Cai.
This restaurant has long been heard. As long as you have watched the variety show "The Glory of the Chef", you naturally know dong Zhenxiang (da Dong), Cai Hao (good wine and good Cai), and Uncle Rong (New Rongji) these three kitchen ceilings.
Good wine and good Cai, is Teacher Cai Hao's restaurant. In Hong Kong and Guangzhou, there are open, especially in Hong Kong, known as the star kitchen.
Last week, @Lin Ke teacher sent me WeChat and asked me if I was in Hangzhou on Wednesday? Teacher Cai Hao said that he was going to come to Hangzhou to invite everyone to dinner.
Teacher Cai Hao's invitation to dinner is also very casual, that is, he just received some ingredients sent by friends, including oysters, sturgeon tendons, and sturgeon heads. So I improvised and invited everyone to try the dishes.
This is a good thing, even if you don't have time, you have to take time.
Teacher Cai Hao still has an aura, Beckham, Liu Jialing, Liang Chaowei, Eason Chan, Zheng Xiuwen, Tang Wei... Teacher Cai has been invited to cook for them, and I can eat this meal to some extent.
Hangzhou's good wine Cai Kai in Tianmu, Tianmu in this complex of old literature and art.
There is a silver salt photo studio that experienced ancient silver salt photos from a hundred years ago, Kyoto Internet celebrity coffee %ARABICA, Wuhan super popular tavern No. 18, buyer's shop B1OCK, bookstore Tsuruya...
Now there are more good wines and good Cai.
As soon as I entered the good wine and good Cai, I understood why the restaurant took this name.
A whole wall of whiskey, I was intimidated by a non-drinker, the biggest wall I've seen so far.
First there is good wine, and then there are good dishes, this Cai is both Cai Hao's surname and harmonic dish.
Also hanging on the wall is a certificate of the "cup bearer" of Scotch whisky.
My editor sister Salted Fish knows whiskey better, and she told me that the cup holder is a special honor given to the leader of the Scotch whisky industry who has made outstanding contributions to the industry. There are more than 2,000 cup holders in the world, and there are only a few cup holders in China.
Teacher Cai Hao is the cup bearer.
For Chaoshan cuisine, I don't eat much and don't have much knowledge reserves.
When I went to Shanghai before, I ate another Michelin restaurant that specializes in Chaoshan cuisine, "JingxiHui", and I felt that the difference between the two restaurants was still quite large.
Jingxihui is a traditional Chaoshan dish, eating frozen fish rice, lion's head goose, snails, old vegetables and other traditional Chaoshan flavors; what is made is a plate and a glance of craftsmanship.
Good wine and good Cai are more special, the base of chaoshi cuisine, but the modern Chinese food with international expression is made. There are many Chinese flavors but western ingredients/techniques are used, and while respecting the flavor of Chaoshan, it is not limited to "Chaoshan flavor".
In my opinion, Jing Xi Hui is more like a teacher, an empirical school. Good wine and good Cai are more like aesthetic/broad-minded artists.
No one is better than anyone else, the choices are different, each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
Well, let's go back to the meal itself and talk about the dish.
This time, the menu is a Tapas menu with more daily dishes, and it is the first time I have eaten Tapas.
The idea of this menu is to eat and drink, so 80% of the menu is similar to Tapas a small bite of the dish, eat a mouthful of food and drink a glass of wine.
Two stacks of side dishes, stomach-warming soup
Stomach warm soup is worth talking about, it is the opening, the role is not only to warm the stomach, but also to help you quickly enter the state, open the taste buds.
The warm stomach soup of good wine and good Cai will change frequently, but no matter how it changes, it is a combination of protein and starch, this time it is a combination of red rice, coriander and chicken soup, which is fragrant and sweet.
In addition, there is some starch in the stomach, and drinking alcohol will be more shang and easy (tou).
Salted chicken
Chaoshan cuisine is based on the original flavor of the ingredients, not too much cooking, not too much flavor.
Salty chicken is not salty, with soul seasoning ginger and garlic minced, eat the taste is smooth and salty.
To take a close-up, the chicken skin is not fat or delicious, and there is a layer of crystal gum between the skin and the meat.
Red shrimp caviar
I didn't have much of a liking for caviar. Mainly, the previous times I ate it was too salty, and I was really not used to eating it. This may not be my problem, caviar is an ingredient that is conventionally "high-grade salty and fresh seasoning". But everyone is saying that caviar is good, and I am embarrassed to disagree.
Good wine and good Cai's caviar is actually making me used to eating. Later, when asked, it was improved, using Chinese caviar, low salt and making the incense to the extreme.
Wrapping the caviar in red shrimp meat with a shell spoon and wrapping it up like a dumpling, the texture of the bursting pulp changed my view of caviar.
It's not that caviar is bad, it's that I didn't find the one that suited me.
Oysters
One is Girardo (left), fresh seawater flavor, and the other is Josephine (right), which is full and firm in the flesh and returns to the mouth.
Pork head dumplings
Pig head dumplings are Chaoshan snacks, although called rice dumplings, but in fact it is not rice dumplings, there is no rice in it.
It is eaten dipped in orange oil and has a delicate and layered taste.
It's easy to weigh the flavor, but it's not easy to lighten up to preserve the flavor of the ingredients themselves. Good wine and good Cai will give half of the seasoning to the guests (many dishes are equipped with dipping sauce), you can eat it directly, you can also adjust it according to your own taste.
Chaoshan fried striped fish
It uses striped fish from Nan'ao Island. Seasonal food, not in season, December, January with the most fatty fish.
The fish is crispy on the outside, but the meat on the inside is still delicate and oily, delicious.
Fresh abalone in black garlic juice
Fresh abalone is eaten with Japanese fermented black garlic juice (which is made from green garlic seedlings and black garlic juice together). Fresh abalone meat is more elastic, the taste is fresh, and the taste is sublimated after being served with black garlic juice.
Pigeon stewed dragon tendons
This soup is a kung fu dish, and the dragon tendon is the bone marrow of the sturgeon. As the saying goes, "shark fin, sturgeon bone", this dragon tendon is the most essential part of sturgeon.
This dragon tendon is a king-size Plus version, white as snow, with an unusually soft texture and a refreshing taste.
Tofu fish stewed tofu
In fact, this dish does not have tofu, it uses Japanese eggs, and then steamed with tofu fish and flower glue. This is a delicate method of ordinary home cooking, the tofu fish is tender, the steamed egg is also tender, and finally it is poured with a little pepper oil.
Braised sturgeon head
The ratio of sturgeon ingredients in this meal is somewhat high, the caviar is sturgeon, the dragon tendon is also sturgeon, and so is the head of this goose-striped sturgeon.
This dish is a juju (gel) method, and the aroma is strong, which is the aroma of food forced out by the high temperature.
Because of the gelling method, the ingredients blend perfectly with the sauce at high temperatures, presenting a seductive golden crispy brown, and the deliciousness index soars. This is one of the few thick oil sauces in this set.
Bamboo shoots
This is the most chaoshan dish in the whole rice. Kueh is a local traditional snack in Chaoshan Province, you have been to Jieyang, Chaozhou to know, all kinds of kueh.
This koeh is pickled and fermented, and although it smells a little stinky, it can't stand fresh. Food is such an artifact, after fermentation, the amino acids are there, and the taste comes.
This is one of my favorite dishes.
Stir-fried cabbage with bacon
This dish is relatively flat, and I will not introduce it too much.
The main food is paella
A one-pot rice made from a variety of foods such as morels, squid, and fatty meat. The ingredients are abundant and the taste is naturally layered.
Of course, this is only what I see with the naked eye. Teacher Cai said when introducing this paella that there are three kinds of light oil: olive oil, lard, and morel oil, do you say that the level of such a taste can not be rich.
Dessert, happy mochi
Salty food nourishes people, sweet food is pleasant. Dessert is on, and the meal is almost over. The first dessert is Happy Mochi, a tomato made of Japanese varieties and techniques + fermented cream + milk lid wrapped in glutinous rice skin, frozen and fried with flour, hot on the outside and cold on the inside.
The second course is black sesame mousse, which is actually fermented, and the taste is smooth but not greasy, with a slight sour taste.
When the dishes are finished, let's talk about the wine pairing.
I really don't understand the wine, so I went straight to the picture. Good wine is good Cai, wine is in front of the dish. At the same table with Mr. Cai, it really felt like I was given a Scotch whisky tasting class.
Of course, I drank it myself, or Teochew Single Bush (a kind of tea). Drinking from the beginning to the end is also unfinished.
Finally, I can also read the wine label, so let's share it by the way.
For example, the following bottle, 1997 is the year when the can is put into the barrel, twenty-three years is the time it is stored in the barrel, and 2020 is the time when the can is in the bottle.
1 of only 249 bottles is this barrel of wine, containing a total of 249 bottles.
Then 46.7% is the degree.
Every time every restaurant eats, there are always a few very good dishes, and naturally there will be a few shit-like dishes.
This is normal, and sometimes the chef is not there, there is no greeting, the chef is in a bad mood, or the mood is too good, which can cause fluctuations in taste.
I hate eating and saying hello in advance, but sometimes there's nothing I can do about it.
The model of good wine and good Cai is to first elevate the chef's understanding of ingredients and cooking techniques, as well as the height of aesthetics.
Many chefs do not have a high level of knowledge and culture, so they can only rely on empiricism and cannot cite one thing or another. Only by correctly understanding the routine can we transcend the conventional.
With an aesthetic height, it is natural to be able to simplify the complex and reduce the dimensionality.
So in good wine and good Cai, you will hardly eat any bad dishes, which is the benefit of enough standardization. Every meal can be without miracles, but there must be no.
After eating this meal, I decided to brush up on a few more episodes of "The Glory of the Chef".
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