Is tasty food the ultimate motivation that drives us to restaurants? The answer, of course, is yes. But in fact one could also answer no.

Recently, the Hilton Shanghai hotel said that people need to start "eating right"!

The hotel explains that "the right thing" is a healthy food choice as well as a wise food philosophy. For example, according to the hotel, I should eat more vegetables rather than meat because such a diet fits for my blood type, which is A.

The hotel very recently announced that it has removed trans fatty acids, also known as partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, from all its operating restaurants because the material is believed to lead to high cholesterol levels.

Volkmar Ruebel, general manager of the hotel, spent nearly one hour talking about their efforts in eliminating the trans fats and trying to convince me that his hotel is the first in Shanghai to take such an action. His words did make me cautious about what I eat every day,although food safety is no longer a hot topic in t he city.

Many Chinese people are proud of their own culinary style, which is thought to be diversified, healthy,and not that high in fat as its Wester n counterparts are.Among different regional cuisines in the country,Cantonese cuisine might be the most well known for its delicate flavor and beautiful presentation.

Just a couple of days after talking with Ruebel, I went to the Hilton again and had a meal in its newly renovated Cantonese restaurant called Sui Yuan. Located on the second floor, the restaurant is nicely decorated in a classic Chinese style,with a statue of the Fortune God placed at its entrance.

The Sui Yuan restaurant offers a big variety of food choices to meet the needs of different customers.It claims to have "a delicate menu including shark's fin, bird's nest and abalone specialities, as well as dim sum", but they also serve a 58-yuan business lunch on weekdays. The restaurant serves a Chinese buffet at noon on weekends too, featuring not only Cantonese but also Sichuan and Ningbo cuisines.

I started my dinner at the Sui Yuan with the assorted dishes of dim sum, one speciality of Cantonese cuisine. Unlike the Shanghainese snacks, which usually contain crab meat or crab spawn, Cantonese dim sum can be easily recognized as steamed dumplings with shrimp meat inside.

The dim sum I sampled there were good,with a delicate presentation and light flavor. The stuff wrapped by pastries were not only shrimp but also rice and pork, which made the dumplings taste quite compact.

The shark's fin soup with chicken stock was a delicacy worthy of recommendation. The dish tasted a bit richer than a normal shark's fin soup and seemed to have been slightly seasoned by curry.Both the shark's fin and chicken were very fresh and tasty and the soup was even more delectable and easily stimulated my appetite.

Another dish I enjoyed was the stir-fried prawns with chili sauce,which was laid ona salver weaved with fried noodles, with a fake crane standing aside. The prawns' meat tasted crispy, heavy and properly spicy. The whole dish was as splendid as an artistic creation, which also pleased my taste buds greatly.

To my surprise, chefs from the Hilton were serving t he hand-pulled noodles on food courts at t he dining hall when I had dinner at the Sui Yuan restaurant. Diners can decide which kind of noodles they want, no matter how thin or broad, right there on the spot. Actually, the noodles could be quite spicy because many sauces are available.

To be honest, I am not sure whether such a Cantonese meal is the right food for me, but at least it was ver y enjoyable.

Sui Yuan restaurant
Location: 2F, Jing An Hilton Shanghai, 250 Huashan Road
Tel: 021-62487777 ext1870