In the early morning of last Wednesday, after finishing the "Guangzhou Versailles Eating and Drinking Record", I closed the computer, packed up my luggage and flew to Shanghai at dawn to start a new round of magic eating and drinking. Taking advantage of the fact that the opening year is still a little loose, I have decided on a number of restaurants in one go, ranging from new stores that have attracted much attention when they first opened, as well as classic stores that have just been on the menu of the new season. If the last issue of Guangzhou Eat and Drink has already made you feel too Versailles, then please don't look down, because this issue will be more than enough compared to it.
obscura by Tang Xiang
The first meal in Shanghai is scheduled to be at obscura, a restaurant co-managed by asia's best female chef award winner Deaille tam and partner Simon Wang. The new restaurant, which just opened in January this year, has only 11 seats in the front of the board, and is open five days a week, and has recently been in high demand for seats.
After finishing their work at Bo Shanghai, the two chefs took inspiration from the classic dishes from all over the world to reorganize and reproduce the flavors of ingredients, and integrated western cutting-edge concepts and Oriental cultures with unique depth and breadth of insights, and launched the "New Chinese Innovative Modern Chinese Cuisine" that integrates Chinese food culture, wine culture, aroma culture and tea culture.
Sauerkraut fish, lion's head, char siu bun, ginger hen duck, Longjing shrimp, Taihu Sanbai, green pepper bacon, Fuzhou porridge, biting spring green dough... The complexity of the ingredient handling and the composition of the ingredients of the obscura dish are of a very high level, and the natural and reasonable is just right, without giving people the feeling of showmanship, and the complex skills and completion they show are breathtaking.
Taking sauerkraut fish as an example, the nine-painted fish from Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan, after 7 days of maturation, treats the fish into long strips, wraps it in a layer of dried sauerkraut powder, and then wraps it tightly in plastic wrap for freezing, and finally slices it. It is accompanied by sturgeon roe marinated in white soy sauce and lotus ribbon marinated with pickled pepper vinegar, and finally added to the soup containing the unique aroma of sauerkraut and rattan pepper, continuing the essence of the sour, spicy and fresh taste of traditional sauerkraut fish, and giving it an extraordinary and delicate taste level.
It's hard not to think of char siu buns without associating with the signature dishes of the bo innovation era, but obscura's production is completely different from the molecularly spherical, liquid-filled version of the kitchen magic alvin. Stuffed with Brittany blue lobster and flower gum, and with prunes to balance the sweetness of seafood while bringing innovative impact, the milk bun bread technique is used to bake the crust to achieve a thin skin but fully wrapped in a rich filling. Take a big bite and the sweet seafood blends with the rich fermented freshness, and the experience is unprecedented.
Even at the top restaurants, it's rare to have an experience where every dish is full of delicious surprises, and obscura does. Whether it is the most unremarkable green pepper stir-fried bacon, or the newly created Versailles ginger hen duck this month, or the walnut cake and mung bean cake of petit four that are served after the meal, each dish is worth playing again and again, teaching people to be endless, and I really admire the creativity and execution of the two chefs. I am very much looking forward to what kind of surprises will be there next time, and I hope that the lighting, music, atmosphere and wine selection of the restaurant will get better and better.
hik9 Kitchen
In March last year, when everyone was still at home and couldn't go out to eat due to the epidemic, I wrote in "When spring is shining, let's make a date", and the most haunting thing was the good beef of the stone sal salt western restaurant and its off menu. The dry-cooked beef of yan salt is like an elegant suit thug, the gravy is full of vermicelli texture without diarrhea, the surging vitality is stirred in the mouth, and the off menu of chef ling is to exert the aesthetics of oral and abdominal violence to the extreme, which can be called ares in the kitchen.
Stone Sal Yan Yan Western Restaurant was a great success, but Chef Ling was not satisfied with this, a more magnificent and extreme plan was brewed in his heart, after almost paranoid investment and meticulous craftsmanship, the new shop hik9 Kitchen opened in stone sal Yan Salt Shop was finally launched not long ago. The name of the new restaurant takes the meaning of "hiding in the kitchen", Chinese name "乚", pronounced "háo", and the same as "m", which is a variant of "hidden".
Brass, cement, leather, logs, powder salt and other natural elements create a modern gentleman's space that is not crazy and unassuming, with a dining area of only 18 seats at most, but a large step-by-step wine cellar with more than 400 famous wines. The 15-course menu includes the top ingredients from all over the world and different parts of the country, regardless of the collocation criteria, not limited to taste inertia, presenting endless possibilities of "boundless" taste.
The per capita pricing of 3280 yuan + 10%, many people look at the only oysters, duck liver, sea and land sandwiches, morel mushrooms and other terms on the menu, and assert that "it is definitely not worth it." After spending a few hours eating this menu, I must say that this is the most informative dining experience, each dish is like an iceberg floating in the blue waters, only a very small part of the eye can be seen, and there is a wealth of details under the surface, and only a very small number of people with a heart can perceive and appreciate the touch.
If the style of stone sal is likened to Quentin Tarantino's film, which takes the aesthetic of violence to the extreme; then the hik9 kitchen is more like the work of Stanley Kubrick, its artistry, aesthetic presentation, pioneering, grandeur and control of detail beyond paranoia, satisfying the appetite while making people's hearts beat faster and emotionally fluctuating. If you expand the 15 dishes one by one, this push can't stop with 10,000 words, so I will only pick two of them to share with you.
In the specially tailored elegant dinner plate, the small "sea and land sandwich" is a cold version of the classic surf & turf "sea and land double", which is not mysterious at first glance. Put the whole piece in your mouth, and as you chew it, the unusually rich and delicious taste buds spread from the tip of the tongue to all directions, like an electric current flowing throughout the body and converging on the brain, stimulating the secretion of excitatory hormones.
Selected American rib-eye beef after 40 days of dry aging to obtain the same charming aroma as the top ham, charcoal-fired Fushun Kyo onion mashed and then added to Japanese soy sauce to make Kyo onion soy sauce, brushed on top of the beef to stimulate the rich meat aroma, cooked tuna belly for a week to beautify the sweetness and softness into a rich fragrance, homemade wasabi soy sauce to make the flavor more vivid and flexible. In its presence, any rhetoric of words is dull and boring, and cannot describe it as a beautiful one percent.
Extra-large morels from Gaoligong Mountain, Yunnan Province, are raised in a low-temperature ripening chamber of homemade Australian wagyu beef ham to absorb the aroma of beef, and then mince abalone, Kansai sea cucumber, morel mushroom cap, fresh cuttlefish and molten into morels, and harvested with abalone juice, chicken juice, shiraz red wine and port wine over low heat. The crisp and crisp texture of morels is perfectly maintained, the filling is rich and soul-destroying, and the mountain treasures and seafood blend and stir between the lips and teeth in the mouth, and there is a sense of taste and beauty to see the world.
But that's not all, a leaf of ice grass next to it, with two drops of sauce, is a concentrated essence made from 20 years of Xinhui tangerine peel and 20 years of Moldena black vinegar and Taiwanese brown sugar mixed with sealed extract of aroma balance acidity and taste. After eating the morels, the ice grass is dipped in the essence sauce and sent to the mouth, and the melodious fruity sweet fragrance stirs up layers of waves on the tip of the tongue, and the ripples spread out, feeling the summit paradise along Mount Meru. Who would have thought that the simple word "morel mushroom" on the menu would hide a whole world.
Taian table Tai'an Gate
Compared with the previous two new restaurants, Tai'anmen can be regarded as an "old brand". Stefan Stiller, a celebrity chef from Germany who has been living in Shanghai for 17 years, decided in 2015 to prepare to open his own restaurant, Tai'anmen, which took only a few months to pick up a Michelin star, but had no choice but to close down due to force majeure after 33 hours of star picking. After many efforts, the 2.0 version of Tai'anmen has reappeared in a more mature and standardized posture, and the word of mouth of the product continues to be online.
Walking into the low-key Tai'an Gate located in the Creative Park in Yuyuan, Zhenning Road, the first floor of the restaurant is composed of an open kitchen with a smooth stainless steel texture and dark black tone, a board front, and a card seat, the decoration design is not fancy, but from the layout, lighting, moving line and many other details can be seen in the profound skill. In addition to chef Stefan Stiller's heroic champagne and exquisite cooking ability to use fresh ingredients, but also the speed with which he leads the team to create new dishes and update the menu.
Tai'anmen updates a version of the menu every 50 days on average, which shows the depth of the team's accumulation and terrible research and development capabilities. This time, coinciding with the new menu in the 31st edition, I chose an 8+4 set menu, in addition to 8 seasonal dishes, plus 2 classic 2 special dishes composed of 12 flavors.
The light buffalo cheese is mixed with a pickled chicken crown, layered with slices of celery root and pickled celery, and the best thing is that a very crisp chicken skin is hidden in the middle, dripping with celery apple juice, and a drop of chicken sauce condensed from homemade fish sauce and chicken broth inspired by ancient Mediterranean cuisine, presenting a fresh and wonderful taste, as well as indescribable taste depth and rhyme.
The white and tender Dover fish is sandwiched between the fish meat and the creamy Atlantic lobster meat, the seafood minced filling, covered with a layer of golden lobster butter crisp, the oil aroma and the sweet taste of the fusion, more unique is sprinkled on top of the purple curry powder, made of hibiscus flowers, fenugreek, coriander, cumin, cinnamon and other more than ten spices mixed and ground, poured into the lobster broth blended with lemongrass, ginger and coriander, it tastes almost Zen flavor.
Unexpectedly, the German chef actually took the Guangdong pigeon as the main dish, and after a week of dry aging, the meat was soft and delicate under the action of microorganisms, and it was not fishy or fragrant. The bones are roasted in a charcoal oven until the pigeon's breast is tender pink, and the barley and buckwheat are cooked in pigeon juice and white sauce and superimposed with pickled pork cheeks, maitake mushrooms, white mushrooms and beetroot flakes, accompanied by ginger puree and rich pigeon sauce, forming a gorgeous dish.
The Tai'anmen chef team is busy in the neat and new open kitchen, the process is pleasing to the eye; stefan stiller personally came to carefully introduce the materials and creativity, attentive and thoughtful; the overall feeling is solid and meticulous, whether it is the use of skills or the creativity of ingredients, it is like a well-known and decent fist sword sticker, step by step. Each dish has a rich and complex structure that is worth thinking about and playing with. Very much looking forward to the upcoming Tai'anmen Guangzhou store, make jianliu great again.
Elite Jubilee
I have written about Jingxihui more than once in my previous pushes, which is my favorite high-end trendy dish in Shanghai. Du Jianqing, the owner and designer of the dishes, is very powerful, and he is well versed in the essence of chao cuisine while being free from tradition.
Flexibly using the best ingredients from all over the world, he has continuously expanded the boundaries of chaoshi cuisine appreciation, and has been blessed with the honor of one Michelin star black pearl three diamonds. At noon, when I was about to end my trip to Shanghai, I came to the JingxiHui Bund store to try new spring dishes, which was not only full of food but also long-term insight.
Broad beans in shallot oil have been cleverly evolved into elegant pre-dinner snacks, full of fragrance, cuttlefish eggs and self-pickled garlic slices and aged old vegetables are fished out, rich in layers and vivid flavor. This kind of taste experience that is both familiar and novel, and the gorgeous taste experience between chopsticks, teaches people to indulge in obsession.
The signature Xi Shi Tongue and Ao Belly Gong have always mastered the ripeness, seasoning and sweetness just right; Jing Xi Hui insists on using only wild sea fish, and today there is a delicious and tender wild green bone color tail.
I was impressed by the crispy Wagyu with Italian vinegar, but today I learned through Du's explanation that the wonderful layers and balances come from the fusion of Teochew salty plum juice and Modena black vinegar. The flavor-type framework of the chao cuisine accommodates more advanced ingredients, and the harmony presents an unprecedented fresh experience.
Spring new dish Teochew green eggplant on the table, the skin is tender and sweet taste is excellent, in the delicious French blue green mouth, plump Chaoshan soil pork salty, fat intertwined, fascinating.
Mr. Du returned to his hometown and found that the leeks grown in an innovative way were extremely tender and delicious, and specially purchased them back with lard residue as a lining and stir-fried for ten seconds, silky smooth and sweet without slag. These stunning "jing dishes" with full marks are not worth their lives, and it is no wonder that many loyal fans do not hesitate to fly to feast on them.
Drink from morning to night
The main purpose of this trip to Shanghai is to go to the above restaurants to appreciate the exquisite beauty of cuisine, all the energy and focus are placed on eating, so that there is no arrangement for drinking, basically just a stitch to drink, but even so, has been drunk quite Versailles, no way, who let this be in the Ten Mile Ocean Field Shanghai.
I didn't have to sleep late on weekends, because at 11:30 a.m., at le saleya bar à vin on Changle Road, a champagne tasting brunch carefully organized by Penang Culture was underway at Shanghai Station. After the epidemic, the French boss abandoned the store and returned to Europe, and the famous "brother-in-law" of the Shanghai wine circle took over this family-style French restaurant, making it a new gathering point for wine lovers. This time, he designed an exclusive brunch menu to accompany the new champagne products selected by Meng Lei and her team to share with the Shanghai betel artists.
bérêche et filsrilly-la-montagne BeheisCh Champagne 2015, this black and white champagne house Beheich, one of my greatest loves, elegant fruity aromas and complex and layered aromas are invigorating, not only betel artists love it, I recommend it to whisky drinkers for various occasions, and the same circle of fans, people have fallen into the pit.
Francis boulard & fille rosé de saignée 2013, the winery I tried for the first time, the owner of organic cultivation and experimenting with biodynamic methods, Francis boulard, carefully planted winemaking, condensing the terroir well in the bottle. Paired with the shop's signature buffalo cheese and mixed organic tomatoes, it complements each other perfectly.
Brunch is not over, I have to leave early on leave, and it is common to rush to the scene on weekends in Shanghai, which everyone can understand. Taxi to the former site of the Navy's Aircraft Office, which is a verdant place today, where louis vuitton's new season of women's clothing shows will be on display.
In recent years, the relationship with the fashion circle has gradually drifted away, this kind of occasion does not attend much, in a group of fashion hipsters seem to be a little out of place, but it is good to meet two handsome brothers. Before the show, others were either posing for photos from different angles, or seizing the time to pick up new products of the season to buy and buy, while I was standing in front of the bar drinking cocktails made by kevin song and allen hsu.
Open the show, sitting in the front row to carefully observe, this season's tough and neat female samurai style design is too handsome and too good-looking, strong independent female charm is undoubted. After the catwalk, the VIP people who spent thousands of dollars went upstairs to grab the order, and I went back to the bar to continue drinking, haha.
Next, we continued to move, making an appointment with friends on the Bund in the evening, and sitting down for a drink at 18 the Bund in the evening, which belongs to the lvmh group and is Hennessy's world's first concept bar blends by hennessy. I have written a special article about it before, and I am impressed by the exclusive creative cocktails of its various avant-garde tastes.
As the brand's world premier store, blends is not only modern and elegant in design, but its cocktail products are created by chris xi, a wine circle technology expert and known as "professor", which is naturally unique. This time I tried a "hot pot" cocktail that will be launched on the new season's wine list, which is very avant-garde. When the new wine list is fully launched, be sure to arrange time to brush it through from beginning to end.
A good friend of the betelger heard that I had never tried Sheng Yongxing's roast duck with champagne, and I thought it was incredible, so I had to arrange a show for me. To the Bund No. 5 Sheng Yongxing (Bund store), the environment is too good to pick, the use of space, the details of the design are all in place, neither emphasize the Chinese nor deliberately Westernized, and the Bund style is harmonious, the most rare is that it is appropriate and not too strong.
Sitting down and opening the wine list is even more amazing, the selection of wine can be seen to be extremely high, covering a comprehensive, appropriate meals, the most important thing is that the pricing is extremely pleasant, high-end champagne is almost retail price, do not order to drink are sorry for themselves. No wonder even jean-marc nolant, the notoriously poisonous "old horse" in the wine circle, praised Sheng Yongxing's wine pricing. Before dinner, let's have a glass of delamotte Delromon champagne to clear your mouth and wait for it to be served.
Brine duck tongue, mustard duck palm, pepper snail, black truffle prawn balls, crispy fish... The dishes are indeed exquisite and there is no shortcoming. As the staff moved in a professional duck case, the roast duck made a grand appearance. The chef first took a bite of puff pastry on the duck's chest with a dexterous knife piece, cushioned with Shandong noodle steamed buns, and scooped up a spoonful full of Kaluga Haibori caviar, which is the famous Sheng Yongxing caviar roast duck.
First take a sip of geoffroy Fuhua rosé champagne, and then send a piece of Sheng Yongxing caviar roast duck to the mouth, the complex and charming taste is addictive, the crispness of the duck skin, the saltiness of the caviar, the sweetness of the noodle steamed buns, the fragrance of the green and white filaments come together, and then drink a mouthful of rich and sweet champagne, this roast duck a bite of crisp & Hai borui caviar & wine Fuhua rosé champagne pairing is really a fascinating little goblin, like the song of the sea demon Siren in the ocean, teaching people to linger.
After returning to Guangzhou, at 2:00 a.m., while looking back at the photos of the shanghai trip, while typing the above text on the keyboard, I was tempted to itch and fidget, I hope that when you see this push, it is not when you are hungry in the middle of the night, otherwise it is estimated that you will not be able to sleep like me.