The restaurants in Beiping belonged almost entirely to the Yantai Gang, and the Jinan Gang arose later. The history of Zhimeizhai in the Yantai gang is quite old. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Wei Yuankuang's "Trivia of the Capital Gate" talks about Zhimeizhai : "Zhimeizhai is named after four fishes. Cover one fish and make four, the sub-name is 'Ten Thousand Fish', and the head and tail are braised, the sauce is hot in the middle, the rest or fried, or vinegar, rotten. "The fish for Mei Zhai is doing well, but what I admire most is something else." Pot roast chicken is one of them.
Let's start with this place. The shop is located on Coal Market Street, sitting on the east side of the west, and the upper floor is quite spacious, full of scattered seats. Because of the prosperity of business, a beautiful building has been opened up at a very narrow end opposite, and the upper and lower floors are full of elegant seats. But the kitchen is still the old kitchen of ZhimeiZhai in the east of the road, and the dishes are delivered to the street by little Liba carrying a box. So this seat is very quiet. Two stairs on the left and right, from the left ladder to the front of the first room is one that I often occupy with the attendant Xianjun (press: that is, the deceased father), there is an unknown tree outside the window to cover, the leaves are very large, there is wind and breeze, no wind is also xiaoxiao, very emotional. The first time I got drunk was in this room. After a few glasses of flower carving, I also asked for wine to eat, xianjun did not allow it, I stood on the stool and scooped up a large spoonful of soup and splashed it on the two pieces of xianjun's shirt, and then I fainted and woke up to find that I was at home. I remember this very vividly, when I was six years old.
The pot roast chicken should be roasted with small tender chicken, which is called "bucket chicken" in Beiping colloquialism, and it is suspected that it is a "boy chicken". Yan Chen's "Remembrance of Kyoto Words" has a poem:
Reminiscence kyoto bucket chicken out cheap
The decaying weng is the cheapest toothless, and the imitation of Jinling has suddenly passed.
It is not as if it is not hot here, and kansai han can chew it.
Zhu Yun: "Kyoto cheap bucket chicken, white color and tender taste, chew it without dregs." "He calls cheap bucket chicken, referring to raw chicken, and may also refer to smoked chicken. In the early years, you could buy four for one dollar. Nanjing's oil chicken is famous, and Guangdong's white cut chicken is also very good, and its tenderness is not under Beiping. Yan Chen seems to have a preference for Beiping bucket chicken.
My so-called bucket chicken refers to the chicken that is half the size of the chicken, that is, the size of the chicken used to make "fried eight pieces". Soak the whole one in soy sauce and fry it in the pan until the skin is yellow and crispy. At the same time, a small bowl of brine is made of chicken offal (chicken liver, chicken gizzard, chicken heart) in another pot, and the chicken is sent out together. As a rule, this chicken is not cut with a knife, but is torn by the guy standing outside the door and tearing it into strips. If you don't rip out enough chicken, you can put some cucumber shreds on the plate. Bring the chicken to the table with the brine, pour the brine on it, and it becomes a refreshing appetizer.
Why is it called "pot roast chicken"? I don't quite understand. When passing through Texas on the Pingpu train, you can hear many old and young women and children shouting in their throats: "Roast chicken!" Chicken! "Travelers can buy it by reaching out the window. Earlier about one dollar can buy three, burned butter bright, split open to eat, salty, very tasty (summer to be careful, the appearance of bright light, inside may be a maggot grunting), this kind of roast chicken is burned, maybe the roast chicken in the restaurant plus a pot word, to show the difference.