<h1 toutiao-origin="h3">24HOURS｜HANGZHOU</h1>
On Saturday, the Lingxi Tunnel in Hangzhou, the road into the mountain was blocked, and even the air seemed to condense. The people in each car are doing tacit collective endurance. Hangzhou's road conditions can always easily make people bored, and in recent years, subways have been built everywhere, and the destruction of traffic has become even more intense.
It's been more than an hour, and the start of the trip is just a Tsukiya Bookstore not far away.
However, people's emotions are always changeable. After the tunnel, just like the long-awaited screen in the screening hall, the bustling city has become a thing of the past, and we are already in the full and fresh spring mountains. The greenery everywhere and the comfort of the air make the boredom replace the pleasure in an instant. It only takes a tunnel to complete such a dramatic scene transformation that people can't help but throw away the negative emotions of Fang Cai. Connected mountain paths, tea-picking peasant women with no one next to them, ancient temples with stories... Many cities in China are adjacent to beautiful scenery, and almost only Hangzhou may safely accommodate poetic nature into the interior of the city.
What's more, this is the spring day in Hangzhou, hidden between the flawless greenery, and the taste of spring that makes people look forward to it.
1. Back to Lan Xuan
Lan Xuan, the Chinese restaurant in Fayun Aman, is one of my favorite restaurants in China, and Lan Xuan's spring menu can certainly be a reason to make a special trip to the mountains.
Every spring, many restaurants in Hangzhou launch new spring menus. Compared with those restaurants that only deliberately arrange the ingredients of spring, Lan Xuan's interpretation of the taste buds of spring is more comfortable.
Spring should always eat toon. A dish of toon tofu, Lan Xuan did not do blind deconstruction, only molded the tofu into a cute small circle, with toon as a subtle embellishment. Homemade tofu is slightly swinging when it falls on the table, showing the fullness of water, and the bean fragrance in the mouth is folded, tender and delicate, and the spring and wild atmosphere of the toon is in harmony;
Shredded beef mixed with spring shoots rhymes with slightly spicy, a few small pieces of tangerine peel as a careful thought of this dish, inadvertently balance the five flavors properly, and touch the taste buds at the same time; the dragon's whiskers are matched with fried green onions, and the green onion flavor will eliminate a little astringency of the dragon's whiskers, leaving only a refreshing and vivid tenderness; in the spring cold dish, there are also three clams co-simmered in fried curd skin rolls wrapped in pine leaf crab and shallot oil and chili oil, all of which are simple and beautiful and unparalleled.
In addition to the dragon's whiskers, the yellow cauliflower in the spring vegetables is also my heart's thoughts, Lan Xuan stir-fried with fierce fire, and placed a sweet point of the yellow cauliflower in the harmonious Zhouzheng taste world, the taste is smooth and clear, counting in the skill;
Heaven nurtures all things, and there is a wonderful thing. In Japan, spring favorite bee bucket vegetables and bracken, bracken is slightly astringent, bee bucket vegetables in the fresh mountain atmosphere with the bitter taste of Asteraceae plants, just like the domestic common spring vegetables such as leeks, toon, broad beans, yellow cauliflower, spring shoots and other ingredients, but also have natural astringency - this seemingly not gentle jumping off the taste, may be the original mark of spring taste buds.
The next silver pomfret soup is a gentle work of unity between inside and outside. The silver pomfret in March and April is perfect, and the fish in the clear fish soup is boiling hot, gently blowing in the mouth, tender and very clear and fragrant. Paired with a long flavor of aged vegetables, it can be described as elegant and rhymed with water and milk, which cannot be squared. This is not only the micro balance that belongs to a dish, but also the macro balance that belongs to the spring day.
Braised spring shoots and pickled tuk fresh are both classic tastes of spring in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and it is difficult to find a point in the interpretation of Lan Xuan's light car and familiar road, and everyone will like it.
The finale is a wonderful staple food: hot stir-fried garlic, leek sprouts, yellow eels, the spring taste buds are exhausted, poured on the freshly cooked rice, and then mixed while hot, resulting in a full wok, full of sauce.
Often called Lan Xuan, in fact, the name of the restaurant is "Lan Xuan Village Food Shop", but the four words omitted can best represent the meaning of Lan Xuan - no matter the four seasons, the products in Lan Xuan are never made delicate, and have a simple and unworldly style, just like a village with no name. However, real people never show their faces, and there is a grand view under the seemingly ordinary appearance. The quality of the ingredients, the exquisite carving of the details needless to say, the dishes are even more faintly revealing a kind of "do not hear the world", presumably the chef behind it is such a person with such a temperament. Just like Iida in Kyoto, Tianxianglou in Hong Kong, La Pergola in Rome, a restaurant can really elevate a city's YAG in a way that perfectly embraces it.
You can find such a pure land near the Lingyin Temple, even if you have suffered countless blasphemy, it is still quiet, and Lan Xuan looks precious in the domestic dining environment and secular people's hearts. Not only is it unique, but it is also a deep fate.
2. Little Delight's House
Compared with Lan Xuan, the spring menu of Park Hyatt Hangzhou's Chinese restaurant Yue Xuan takes a different approach in temperament. Compared with Lan Xuan's simplicity, I also like the gentleness and slenderness of Yuexuan, and the overall temperament of Hangzhou Park Hyatt are in the same vein, which is the peak of the aesthetics of the Qiantang River.
Although the standard of Yuexuan spring dishes is difficult to match Lan xuan, it is also remarkable. The combination of glutinous rice, bamboo shoots and Kaluga caviar, the saltiness of caviar and the sweetness of spring shoots, under the sticky taste of glutinous rice, is a high degree of completion, and the thought of wrapping the toon filling with lily mud and forming a combination with 5J ham is also the chef's ingenuity. It is just that the existence of ham and glutinous rice in the two dishes is slightly deliberate, so that the taste type and sense of food of the dish have lost a point of purity in the pursuit of the level, and they are still one step away from superb.
However, the special pickled tuk is divided in the spring menu, and the chef uses almond juice to make the soup base, which is really a wonderful idea between electric light and flint, and the highly recognizable nut aroma and broth of almonds are so matched, it is a masterpiece that rewards imagination and experience. In addition to the salty and fresh two kinds of pork feet, there is also flower glue to make a rich and plump matching, flower glue is not excessive thick and soft, smooth and tender taste, biased towards the Chaoshan region's understanding of flower glue. This dish is unique in The Club's spring menu and is looking forward to staying on the regular menu.
Another dish of mackerel steamed with snow vegetables and bad bones is a typical Ningbo practice, but the aroma of bad bones is too light, and the saltiness is sharp, which unfortunately suppresses the aroma of mackerel. The steamed snow vegetables are also light and tasteless, the whole dish tastes ambiguous, it is difficult to balance, and it is difficult to integrate with other spring dishes, which is not worth specially ordering.
3. Remember Gangnam
The sherry is pickled every winter, and in the spring it is the right time to taste it, and it is an excellent combination with the seasonal mackerel. The model of such a practice is the "Jiangnan Fishing Brother" that I admire in my heart. Although in Hangzhou, the boss's dishes are the old foundation of Ningbo cuisine, and there is a high standard that is difficult to find in Ningbo.
Ningbo people love to eat "Chuanwu", which refers to the blue-spotted mackerel that migrated into the waters of Xiangshan Port before and after the Qingming Dynasty (the elegant name is "鰆鯃", the word refers to the messenger of spring, and the local fishermen feel that the name is complicated, so they are accustomed to using the name of Chuanwu). Compared with ordinary mackerel, the flesh of Sichuan wu that has been experienced in different water temperatures is more delicious and delicate, and it is not only between meetings. Chuanwu is one of the favorite fishes used by Jiangnan fishermen in spring, and steamed with fragrant snow vegetables and bamboo shoots, in the precise expression of traditional tastes, there is no lack of simple beauty and introverted aftertaste worth remembering.
Yuexuan's bad ribs are really very different from the ribs in Jiangnan Fisherman's "Bad Pork Ribs Steamed Pike Crab". The latter retains the mellow sweetness of the mash after baptism at high temperatures, providing the best taste aid for the pike crab. There is "hot air" in the rare dish: it does not refer to the heat of the temperature, but the dish has a hot and warm atmosphere, which requires a combination of careful ingredients and the perfect echo between the superior ingredients to create (the same is true of Lan Xuan's eel rice, but yue xuan's pickled tuk fresh does not do this).
Like the hot pot of white horse jade shoots, beef, beef tendon, and sauerkraut, the ingredients and taste in the pot are in the same latitude, and they complement each other;
The next product holds a different logic - the thick soup base with slow boiling has pig's trotters, yellow fish fish, and hand-scraped Ningbo fish balls, and different ingredients are rich in different tastes and flavors, but they are like confidants who hate each other and hate each other, and the combination is natural. The two dishes are combined in different ways, but they are both representative of "hot" dishes (a potato tomato white crab pot also has a similar delicious philosophy, called the elegance of the farmhouse, below).
In addition to elegance and warmth, Jiangnan Fishing Brother also has a very powerful dish classic. For example, Alaskan sea cucumber with osmanthus mussel (sea cucumber inner tendon meat), with Jiangsu and Zhejiang scallion roast crucian carp method to cook, in zhejiang Lanxi under the blessing of the thick soy sauce, sea cucumber into the flavor, the aroma is magnificent; ink fragrant meat from the visual amazing, the whole body black thanks to cuttlefish juice, the original version of this dish is to use old ink strips to burn meat, unfortunately the old ink strips are really rare, I came up with ink to replace, completed this dish of flavor highlighting the superb taste of fat.
Just like Lan Xuan's clever hands, Jiangnan Fisherman's spring dishes are also top-notch: the oiliness of the fried mackerel is very well controlled, and the freshness of the small fish is set off in the lightness; the small dish mixed with spring shoots and small knife fish wontons is also the authentic taste of the season.
The seasonal tide and small white shrimp are also wonderful. The smaller the tide, the more precious it is, and its crisp and tender non-chef's acquired kneading can bring, which inevitably wins the new Rongji; the small white shrimp is of excellent standard, the soup is rich in garlic flavor, dare to taste, is a simple and natural way to add flavor;
Good dishes are often silent, there are thousands of weather in silence, and there is a deepness hidden in simplicity. If plum blossoms always hide a little dark halo in the winter snow, begonias will surely bloom as promised in the brilliant spring.
Some people say that "there is no food to eat", but this is not the case. Just as a stream in nature flows from above to below, we can accurately distinguish between what is upstream and what is downstream. The same is true of the way of food - children often like to eat wonderful and lively, prefer straightforward seasoning without thresholds, and will be attracted by the superficial elements of the dish, and as the food experience becomes more and more abundant, people will slowly feel the complexity of the accumulation, and gradually know how to appreciate the profound delicacy in simplicity (most of the appreciation process in all fields is the same). Although the process is fast and slow according to each person's different perceptual talents, this trend is common to all people, just like the direction of water that never changes.
Therefore, it is not difficult to distinguish between delicious things. After all kinds of deliberation and contemplation, but presenting a dragonfly a little water, a beautiful and silent delicacy, it is worth a long time of scrutiny. And Jiangnan Fishing Brother and Lan Xuan are worthy of such a delicious place. There are two such restaurants in one city, which is really the happiness of the people in the city.
But what are the number of people who really know what they are happy for?
Hangzhou pepper spring shoots, Hangzhou Xinrongji
Jiangnan Fishing Brother is located in the city's ordinary alley strange side, when dining outside the window accompanied by the bustling sound of the city, but completely unaware of the hustle and bustle, but harmonious in the complete dining experience. If Lan Xuan is small and hidden in the wild, then Jiangnan Fishing Brother is really hidden in the world.
Out of the restaurant, you stepped into the downtown, straight forward through the small street, passing a few more houses, after a few hundred meters you can go down the road, pick up the steps, ten minutes later, you can already overlook the city from the middle of the mountain.
The mountain forest that wedgs into the city is the middle of a city. Standing in the small pavilion on the mountainside, I thought of everything about the city, thinking of mountains and lakes, thinking of temples and roads, thinking of bamboo shoots and fish, and thinking of the past and this night that belonged only here, slowly, my heart intertwined with a happy and regretful mood, like a dream that could not be transcribed.
Happy to be here, regret to always have to leave. Yes, it was a pity, at least for that moment.
Written by Rinka/KaKa
Photography by Rinka