[ Bistronomy ]
<h1 class="ql-align-center" > simple luxury</h1>
Most of the international chefs wearing crowns are actually timid,
Afraid of changing seasons,
Two afraid to change the stove,
Three fears of changing local ingredients...
Once the average person is on 2000 yuan,
It is not tolerated to be haunted and not to play local,
Where the chef has the ability to say,
"Today there are melons to eat melons and beans to eat beans",
That's no less difficult than when playing Pac-Man for hours,
When you are hungry, you will have peas on hand.
Cheap ingredients "random should be what advanced change" is difficult,
Not to mention that guests can easily move to the street stalls.
A small request, if you are not careful, is a big request. For example, eating the international culinary circle "Taiwan Light" Jiang Zhencheng in Taipei's RAW restaurant, Taipei celebrities every day with "party in RAW" is the look. The 30-ton southern pine carved "Liuyun" at the door has become a punching card place for the strength of the wind background, and it has won three international design awards when it opens. I thought to myself, wouldn't it be another place to take pictures and put garlic on it! Then don't go...
James, the godfather of Coffee in Taipei, fika fika owner, asked me one day if I knew about "Bistronomy", the combination of Bistro (tavern) and gastronomy (cooking), and I said I didn't know. He said the idea refers to the luxurious production of products in a people-friendly way to do. The RAW, which has been ranked among the "Asia's 50 Best Restaurants" in just one year after opening, has been on a smooth footing, and in the first year of the 2018 Taipei Michelin Guide, it has won the glory of one star; the following year, it has won the honor of two-star restaurant, and has become the most difficult restaurant in Taipei.
Since the fate is so good that it is like a Nezha, whether it is a demon or a fairy, it must go.
I like the Cloudside "Dream Manifesto" to say: we will respect the past and never forget where we came from, personally I think it translates as: "Don't forget history, don't forget the book" or translate it as "don't forget foreign technology, don't forget local ingredients", it can be. This is Jiang Zhencheng's thinking about the dream of "Nature x Craft", and the pattern can be seen. This made me very interested in the management of this restaurant, and the part of the first-class restaurant that is more precious than the dishes is to be "sustainable" and "local", which is a "stupid method" that is extremely difficult for haute dining.
<h1>Taiwan's "tight inside and loose on the outside" is humane</h1>
<h1>56 locations 10 waiters accompany guests to pure chat</h1>
<h1>The management of the back kitchen is to see "when the waiter rests"</h1>
When he went, Jiang Zhencheng was staying in Yilan, northeast Of Taiwan, to study ingredients. The menu does have chef Huang Yilun's style: "precise", simple ingredients listed, just in line with his "simple and powerful" cooking concept. As soon as the drawer under the table is opened, all kinds of tools are available.
The seat I was sitting on was the "Gourmet Observation Deck", just behind which the whole restaurant was surrounded, and in front of it was the semi-open "back kitchen stage". Allow me to use the word "stage", the breathing in the kitchen is running on the table with 24 solar terms, this space seems to be performing a play, the director is so harsh, no script must follow the concept, the instructions are all in "French", methodical, no actor is allowed to say the wrong half a line.
I leisurely ate cherry blossom shrimp cold powder appetizers, and the mood was like blowing a refreshing breeze, which felt like a stark contrast to the fire in the kitchen. They actually work in French.
"It's easy to want customers to come over, you can just drop everything to enjoy, and then the strict way of cooking is very militaristic management." RAW's compassion for guests is "stocking". Originally a traditional French restaurant, you have to wear a suit and tie, and it may take two and a half hours to eat a meal, which is very formal. But the chef wanted to make its atmosphere more bistro (bistro). So the music in the restaurant is bright, the atmosphere is relaxed, and there is no hard and fast rule dress code. But management, service, and cooking details are all meticulously carried out with the concept of a French restaurant.
Huang Yilun spoke gently and elegantly, and in stark contrast, the operating table-like back kitchen.
"Every time we make a change menu, we tell all the staff what words I'm going to use this time. It may be pronounced in English, French, or Japanese. I tell them once or twice that they just remember, and it comes from personal experience, and I was very unaccustomed to it when I first started working with the French a few years ago. I have always felt that why France has so many requirements, it is very difficult to do at the beginning, and it is completely different from the requirements of Taiwanese chefs at that time. In contrast, language is still a small thing, whether it is the way to organize food with plastic wrap, or the number of times the kitchen is sorted, or the whole way of communication is completely different, must be brushed three times or four times, the kitchen will be sorted out four times. At first I would feel like it was a big gap, and I was going to think, how could this be?! I wanted to do the same in Taipei, and I was asking myself, do I really need to do this? "The rumors sound true, RAW employees in the team, in French to prompt, staff training is very harsh.
Here you can not see the normal menu, there is no dish name, RAW in the drawer left to the guest "ingredient card" is actually the menu, the reverse is a dish of three ingredients of the prompt, in fact, there is no difference with the blank, the chef said that because people's memory of food is at most three ingredients.
"But then when I went to France, I wasn't very resistant to it. I had developed that work habit in that year. So I'm going to learn things faster. Because when many people go to a different place, they have to re-adapt to that environment, but I don't need to, because it has been in that atmosphere for a long time. So when I came to France, I immediately started working and studying hard. That experience made me feel like I had to help my team improve when I came back to Taiwan, how I did things when I was in France, and how I came back here. That includes the name of the dish or the use of a proper noun, basically I don't use Chinese I'm talking to them. Because most of all when they get used to such an accent or get used to such an international kitchen management. "It made me deeply aware that chef learning is now cross-cultural, and that world-class restaurants are the same language system."
Chef Huang Yilun's words made me finally understand that "the people on the bridge are watching the scenery, and the people watching the scenery are looking at you outside the window."
"Actually, I like that this kitchen has a design where the chef can see the guests. In traditional French restaurants, many chefs are locked up in the kitchen, and what happens outside and what kind of guests do not know. But on the RAW side, basically the chef will try to see the feeling of the guests, the same dish at each table, its taste is the same, the chef will make his own assessment in his heart, may say what it looks like, or there is no wine, it can be a little heavier, may need to eat, or there are older guests to do a little lighter, or some may be foreign guests. RAW's accommodation will be based on each guest's feelings, and then slightly adjusted. ”
"After we talk about Taiwanese flavor, then many people will say that it seems that using Taiwanese ingredients is Taiwanese flavor or how to season with soy sauce is Taiwanese flavor. In fact, more often, I think Taiwan is about human touch, and we observe the needs that guests may have. So I need a space like this, where I can see the reaction of the guests, then I can adjust in time. "So, it's not hard to understand that there are 56 locations needed here, and 10 waiters have been chatting with Chun Chun, taking care of all kinds of requirements and emotions."
Huang Yilun, who is dealing with the duck reward
Restaurant management is not a big deal, in fact, it is a commonly recognized work habit, which needs to be confirmed. "Because I want them to get used to it, because not every employee understands English from the start." There must be employees like this who just start to think that everyone is Taiwanese, why do we have to use English and French when we are in the restaurant. In the first year, everyone was the most unacceptable, but when we first did the event, there was a foreign chef who came, and I did not change the way I communicated with everyone, and when the two team members understood, they found that what he was doing now was what an international kitchen was doing. After they developed that habit, they didn't feel that there was anything wrong, and he found that foreign chefs were like this, and he understood the meaning of daily progress. ”
On the wall of the restaurant hangs a bee diagram of Taiwanese illustrator Zou Junsheng, reminding albert Einstein of saying, "Without bees, humans would only live another 4 years." No bees, no pollination, no plants, no animals, no humans. "It feels like raw teams are a swarm of bees.
I asked the chef if there were any particularly strict rules in the kitchen. "I think we don't say very strict, but we say that the meal time and rest time are very strict, I don't care what time the employees come to work, sometimes some employees will secretly come very early, but I don't look at the number of work cards." But we asked for a meal, and all the employees had to sit down to eat. Whether you want to eat or not, you just can't do anything. Then rest all the time to leave the kitchen. You can go to the office and blow air conditioning, smoke or buy something anywhere, but you just can't do anything. This is a big difference from Asian kitchens. ”
"Good old-school employees will tell you that they work for more than a dozen hours a day without stopping. But after I worked with the French, I found that they might come very early, but they would stop at rest time and dinner time. When he knows what time he must stop, it will produce efficiency. I know, I'm just three hours, I can prepare these things, such as need to prepare is 140 people, how much I have to prepare at once, how to arrange. Because there are limitations, they begin to produce efficiency, which stimulates thinking. I often talk about whether your technology will progress or not, it all starts from whether you want to. Have you ever re-planned this, because if I don't tell you what time this thing must be stopped, then everyone is in it and I do it for 20 hours. This controls them to produce the efficiency they need in 12 hours or less. ”
"Now the kitchen is doing a quarter of a day of tidying up. After the dishes of which department are finished, they will be washed off and then put on plastic wrap, and this department will not do anything else next. At best, simple procedures, there will be no more polluting work. Then before the next meal starts, before the meal is ready, the plastic wrap is pulled off, and the table is still clean. So in fact, especially the guests in your position can often feel that it is like just seeing the kitchen is very busy, but after the meal, the kitchen seems to be fine, and I don't know where people have gone. ”
"Efficiency is up to them, I limit this first, then they think about how to adjust." I don't look at what time they go to work, I just look at whether they go with me after work, or look at the details of the meal time, and I know that the employees are not efficient. This method was basically learned in France, because when the French first came to Asia, they would feel as if only Taiwanese and Japanese would work all day. But they believe that rest is part of the job. That's actually later understood that of course you can work long hours, and it's good that you have that endurance. But, after all, sometimes you have to have a break and adjustment, especially this restaurant, which is running from noon to night. How do I get my colleagues to stay focused and mentally focused by the evening. That afternoon break I think is very important. So I don't let them do things in the afternoon unless necessary. ”
The raw art installation that reflects the RAW is also as rigorous as a surgical lamp, as if it were carved out of tweezers.
<h1>The secret of cross-border cuisine is to find "delicious DNA"</h1>
<h1>The signature menu was born from a staff dinner with brine eggs and pepperloaf</h1>
<h1>The cross-cultural presentation is appreciated by people in various countries</h1>
"When we set up this restaurant in the beginning, we wanted to feel natural, but we could balance it with exploration." Huang Yilun said.
I was peeking at the dishes on the table of the lady who was talking and laughing at the next table, and I was curious about a list of "non-alcoholic spirits" wines. Go to the official website of the Michelin Guide and type in the search field: Seedlip. A line will appear: This Man is changing the way we think about mocktails. In the view of Ben Branson, the Alcoholics of British herbal distillation, today's young people are increasingly inclined to a healthy and environmentally friendly lifestyle, "fitness", "alcohol-free" has become a green revolution in the wine list.
Without discussing the taste of Seedlip, Ben Branson retains the aroma and flavor of spirits by repeated distillation and concentration, using seemingly simple grains, fruits, vegetables and spices as raw materials, but in fact, it contains a wealth of modern science. Three alcohol-free distilled spirits are currently available, namely Seedlip Garden108, Seedlip Spice94, and Seedlip Grove42. This is the same as Jiang Zhencheng's "first does not use a large number of foreign ingredients, secondly, the cooking method still emphasizes the modern new school, and finally the restaurant style takes a simple route." "Coincide," he once said, saying that Nordic cuisine, which has attracted the attention of the whole world, is also taking the Bistronomy way.
I ordered a cocktail made by Seedlip, which had a pleasant wilderness atmosphere. Seedlip comes from a conversation between Ben Branson and his grandmother. Grandma told him that when people used to pick peas on the farm, they used to pack beans in baskets called Seedlip. Seedlip Grove 42 has aromas of bitter orange, blood orange and lemongrass.
"Seedlip Spice94 for Columbus In 1594 he discovered the New World, after landing on St. Maarten, he found allspice (not passion fruit, it was a pepper) and cardamom in it, to commemorate that year of development, and then his focus was on spice, added hazelnut chocolate, and then there was this acidity and cumin floral in the middle, and there was a fragrant smell at the entrance, which was three different series." The waiter said intimately.
Jiang Zhencheng once said: "If your location is not rich in caviar and truffles, you can play from the existing ingredients." Therefore, noma, a Danish restaurant known as the world's first, uses local vegetables, herbs, spices to create a fresh taste of the forest, and even uses wild crabs and sea crayfish to turn into orange sunset imagery... Creativity and taste are loved by countless gourmets. ”
While eating and listening to Huang Yilun talk about the concept, he gradually felt RAW's sensitivity to the culture of ingredients, including the compassion of Taiwan's human touch, and then used his own unique understanding to string together the taste of Taiwan and the taste of France, wonderfully strung together, through the seasoning system, there is an artistic expression.
"A dish from the previous season, because we had a tea egg once in the fall of the previous year, and we were going to make this tea egg, not because the tea egg was particularly delicious. At first, I thought of making this tea egg because we have a colleague whose home is in the egg business, and he is reselling boiled eggs, tea eggs, and brine eggs, many of which can be bought in the market. One day, he took the brine egg he had made in his house, which I thought was delicious, and the company colleagues came to buy a lot of the group. ”
"We wanted to tailor a new dish to his background. In fact, this colleague is not a student of cooking, he himself is a student of art. So at the beginning, we said okay, then let's start with making tea eggs, because tea eggs are a very Taiwanese flavor dish, so we make tea eggs first. But we don't make whole tea eggs that are so big, we make smaller ones, and we make them with bird eggs. This bird egg is made how we first want to make it in the best state, that is, the yolk should not be cooked until it is fully cooked, and then how long will it be pickled, how, its crack marks will be obvious, why? When making the presentation, everyone thought of using the concept of a bird's nest. So let's try to use potatoes, and then use a few other things to see if we can make a bird's nest. So later, after practicing slowly a few times, we found that there was an egg and a bird's nest, but after there was an egg and a bird's nest, we would like to say, can we let this bird's nest grow on the tree. So the colleague, because he was an art student, he would buy some art himself and come back to arrange flowers, have some branches, and then slowly, we moved the nest to the tree. So the whole process is grinded out like this. Of course, many people in the restaurant said that all of our employees must be undergraduates, in fact, there is not, we will now ask his second specialty, if he may be fitness, he is particularly good at art, can arrange flowers or something. Because his other side lines actually help with cooking. Later, we really let the tea eggs grow on the tree, which was also very creative at that time, so this was very interesting for him. So that quarter we invited his family to dinner, and the employee's inner sense of identity was complete. ”
The "lantern" of the Japanese roasted bird shop is actually taken from the immature egg in the hen's belly. RAW's method is special, the outside is a thin slice of filet beef with pickled sake, wrapped in a lantern, on top of which is Taiwan's native caviar, and when you pick it up, you can eat it directly by hand. The waiter especially reminded that because it would burst, the mouth was closed when biting. I still remember the deliciousness of that bite, and although intuitively similar to the bulging small steamed buns, because the outer membrane was extremely thin skin and the amino acids were concentrated enough, it could only be described by bombs!
Taiwan dried tofu stir-fried small fish is a home cooking dish, this dish is a tofu made of Takao sandwich, which is filled with pickled horse mackerel, the golden lotus petals originally have a bit of mustard flavor, can be despondent, plus with curd sauce and crisp rice paper-like bean skin echo. As soon as they took a bite, Mexicans, Japanese, and Chinese cheered.
Where did so much inspiration come from, I ask? Huang Yilun replied: "When choosing a flavor combination, you also need a DNA. For example, in Taiwan, we originally thought it was delicious for the taste of basic dishes; sometimes we felt that it was a special ingredient that needed to be introduced; sometimes it was a coincidence. When we discussed with our colleagues, we found that the things that the employees ate were the most direct, and we would order them ourselves when we felt that they were delicious. But how to introduce to foreign guests, but also let all other employees have a higher sense of identity with this dish, you can use their own understanding to introduce this dish. This is important. ”
When the waiter served this dish, I couldn't imagine that it was so beautiful, but the ingredients were so simple. "RAW's dishes will pay great attention to the change of solar terms, summer mainly covers two solar terms, the first is called mango, the lunar calendar says to eat grains, so with barley, wheat, red wheat, coix these to make risotto, is the surprise taste brought by the risotto. However, its own concept comes from the salted egg bitter melon porridge that we often eat in Taiwan in the summer, plus homemade mayonnaise, which has two colors of jade and white jade, which is refreshing and simple. ”
"When we think about this dish, in fact, we are not directly making Western plate with Chinese cuisine, we are thinking about the dish that will make us feel delicious, where to order, as if we are talking about a taste DNA, such as the risotto of bitter melon." At first, I thought the good thing to eat was because he had some of the aroma of green onions and the taste of bitter melon, then served with salted eggs. So in fact, we only have to intercept these three, instead of frying a plate of salted eggs and bitter melons. I'm pairing that salty feeling with the scent of green onions and salted eggs. So in fact, every time we make the design of these dishes, we first look for our memories, the dishes we like to eat, why we think it is delicious or the average Taiwanese guest will feel delicious, and then we recombine its arrangement. Sometimes, it's also to find something that we think should be mentioned again, like clam rice, or like cake residue or like Yilan duck reward. "When Huang Yilun introduced it, I suddenly realized that Chinese food is also a science of taste.
Duck rewards are very special, and most of Taiwan is pickled with salt and sugar. But RAW is only salted, and the sweet feeling is completely smoked by sugar cane, not sugar, so the taste is completely different from other past.
The first-time guests of this dish will mostly be as amazed as I am, and I estimated that there were 10 million watts of energy in my eyes on the chef at that time. "It's going to be very structured like Spanish ham, that's why we did it." Huang Yilun responded calmly.
"Mangoes are the best seasonal fruit of the season. Eating cantaloupe and ham is a classic. We make it possible for the fruit to be appreciated with the duck, and in the middle of the experiment, we will also notice that a little other flavor is needed in the middle, such as a little lemon, and some fresh cream to match, which can make the taste more round. So the whole time we do the idea every time we do it, we actually come up with an idea first, or find the ingredients we want to refine, and then combine them and then we pay attention to this adjustment step by step. So the whole test process takes more than a month. ”
"I recommend this winter melon very much, because farmers say that they should eat winter melon in the hot summer weather, which is more delicious than the white pear water that has been sent in the season, and it is very delicious to eat the original taste." This concept of Korean lettuce wrapped meat, the whole green on top is kale, the inside is wrapped in a edgey, mixed with smoked oil, so that the fish will taste a little smoky. After the kimchi is air-dried, brush it into powder and add it to the top. Finally, there is the white pear water that everyone will prepare during this season. The chef wanted to use different ingredients to make the texture of winter melon similar to the aroma of white pear water, and then pair it with Japanese kelp. The chef suggested that we try the original taste of winter melon and pair it with the ingredients next to it. "These are actually irrelevant, the key is that every guest here feels intimate after listening to the waiter.
This dish, pronounced Kokotxa in Spanish, was originally practiced in the Basque Country of Spain and is eaten with the use of cod chin waste. Because the body of the cod can make cod steak, the head Europeans do not eat, but there is a lot of gum inside, so RAW found a method, simmered slowly in a pan, chicken soup like simmering collagen, plus olive oil to make a sauce, the sauce method is called pippiiu. Then RAW made some changes, replacing it with the best chicken in taiwan's fields, plus mountain emeralds in Nantou water. Mountain emerald is actually a special kind of nocturnal flower bud. The chef's advice is to crush this with a spoon and fork, mixing the sauce underneath, which tastes a bit like the taste of the chicken sauce prince noodles.
"There are also two authentic taiwanese lost snacks, one of which is a large clam rice, which is very similar to the feeling of Taiwanese meat dumplings. Because there is a lot of seafood on the other side of the outer island of Penghu, it used to be that this kind of big clam was everywhere, and the Taiwanese would pick it up and eat it with a lot of oil and rice, a bit like the feeling of rice dumplings. The clams looked like the coins of the past, so the Taiwanese prayed to the clams that everything would go well, and then threw the clam shells into the sea. Now the clam ingredients are almost impossible to find in Penghu, just like the Japanese white shellfish. RAW is made with paella, which is filled with paella. ”
"The second lost dish is this cake residue in front, snacks from Yilan, yilan only has one or two stalls in Luodong Night Market. This story is that in the past, when the banquet in Taiwan was held, the frying and frying were all made in a traditional hot pot, and after the last night of the banquet, the good ingredients were eaten by the guests, and then the master took a lot of the pot, scraped it and then patted some thin powder to fry. The first is thrifty cuisine, and the second is a dish that only chefs can eat, because the average guest does not have a chance. The next generation of Yilan people will not make this cake residue. Chef Jiang Zhencheng now lives in Yilan, and he thinks it is delicious when he eats this himself. ”
Residents everywhere will make their own cake residue, biting down on it is very similar to Malay cake, it is relatively wet, there will be fish stock, shrimp, chicken, shrimp, mountain treasures and seafood. RAW adds bonito to enhance the umami flavor.
When a new dish resembles a French Duck Pâté (duck batch), the waiter reminds me to pay attention to the salt on the table. "This salt was a souvenir for our guests on our fourth anniversary last year. Salt with shallots, sesame seeds with star anise, pepper, this combination of flavors is reminiscent of our Chinese snack pepperloaf. When I thought of the pepperloaf-flavored duck batch inside, I couldn't help but worry that "after eating this one, my plane will be overweight."
Thankfully, everyone eats one slice. The side dishes of that day were even more special, called artichoke in English and artichoke in Chinese, and I ate more in French food, but few people in Asia ate it. This is the ingredient RAW found in Nantou. "At first, I was surprised to find good, no one in Taiwan ate it, but why did someone plant it?" Later, it was found that it has a good drug composition and can lower blood pressure, so it is normal to send and sell drugs to pharmaceutical companies. "With French pine cucumber salad, RAW specially adjusted lemon juice, add yogurt and soybeans, black beans, so you have to scrape the white and put it on the French meat to eat." Although the outer leaf of the artichoke is hard, the root is soft and sticky, so I pulled the leaf apart one by one, like eating Shakya pineapple and eating melon seed meat. Personally, I think it's a little salty to eat this dish alone, and RAW prepares Pinot Noir with this dish, and the taste is complete.
"The pepperloaf thing was originally our staff meal, and we had a colleague who first made a pepperloaf that was sold in the general night market, and I thought it was delicious for the first time. Later, I went to every night market and ate the pepperloaf, probably knowing what the peppercorns were. I wrote it down and came back. Just tell this colleague, in fact, I think you did that thing last week and did it well, and put it on the menu. At first, he would think that this was just a night market dish. I said it doesn't matter, it's just that I tell you what the French might do, or what kind of method they might do, but the taste can be adjusted with this logic, so I left this thing. That's actually a great opportunity. For Chinese guests, it's a good taste link, because in one bite you already understand what we want to express. So I think it's a good introduction to both foreign and local guests. ”
Seeing that dessert time is approaching, as usual it is Michelin-style petit four. "Cocktails include Mojito and Negeroni, which are made of cactus and grapefruit, then pineapple and coconut, mint and rum, and bergamot in the middle. You can see some coconut nuts inside, and some simple dishes. The texture of the upper, middle and bottom is different, so you should scoop it from the top down and eat it together. "The chef took care of the back kitchen's busiest hours and personally served.
The following dish is wrong if I think it is Daifuku or fresh cheese, the outer layer is white maji, wrapped in winter melon sugar, and inside is Italian Burrata cheese, which has a deep sense of happiness when eaten.
Then this last pair of small snacks are fortune cookies and matcha proteins made of Taiwanese roasted tea, one mellow and one fresh, perfect finish.
So every dish of RAW is done with care. According to the taste of each of us, the balance of each thing is not the same, but the need to eat is the same, that is, to be happy.
My luck with the draw was: No one saw me eating, so it was zero calories.
Even if there is enough wine and food, Huang Yilun's "localization" creation still makes me wake up. "We've always used very local ingredients, and for the past 5 years, most French restaurants in Taiwan would import French duck or American beef, and everyone believed in importing. We are like a translator, we use the skills and other knowledge of international cuisine we know to manipulate local ingredients, which is an innovative process. Therefore, any Taiwanese ingredients should have the opportunity to be presented in a more exquisite way. Even tofu, we made handmade tofu last fall, and we even brought this dish to Germany. We grind the tofu in the morning, when the guests come in, then put the salt brine, count the time, the preparation is very soft. In the process, we were paired with other sauces, and the sauce that we served with tofu at that time was also made with the water that would come out when pressing tofu, and the tofu was clear. It will be a completely different experience. ”
Anyway, I suddenly wanted to take a picture with the chef at the door in the same posture as the rich woman next to me!
The godmother asked
What do you like to eat in Taiwan?
Carry a bag of peas,
Leave one wherever you go.
--Yoko Ono Bean
Food Bless You！
General Advisor of Gastronomy, Asian Design Management Forum