The adventurous palate
By Pauline D Loh (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-03 09:28
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| Banyan Tree resort offers some of the best local dishes in Lijiang, Yunnan province. Photos By Pauline D Loh / for China Daily |
Holidays are usually a time to experiment with more unfamiliar flavors. Pauline D Loh takes the taste test at the resorts of Lijiang.
One of the most delicious dishes I had on our recent sojourn to the delightful twin towns of Shuhe and Dayan in Lijiang was served in a teapot. It came in a purple clay teapot, burnished with a glowing patina and gently steaming on a piece of slate.
The waiter at the Banyan Tree's Bai Yun Restaurant warned us of the heat as he delicately poured a clear consomm into a little teacup. The savory fragrance wafted into the steam, hitting our noses and our palates.
It was a clear soup made by double-boiling a local water bird, the teal, and had the faint aroma of ginseng and Solomon's seal, herbs which are abundantly found locally.
The soup was warm and soothing, especially as we had braved a cold and persistent shower all day as we explored the ancient towns. In fact, it literally did "warm the cockles of our heart".
It was not a soup which we would have normally drunk - waterfowl being less accessible to cooks in our native urban hubs of Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong or Singapore. It was part of the exotic atmosphere of being far away from home, holidaying in a celebrated resort on the foothills of the snow mountains of Lijiang.
Similarly, the black mountain goat that appeared on the menu was not everyday fare. It was a dense, rich stew with dark bits of chewy skin among the tender meat - a testimony, my fellow diner noted, to the pedigree and color of the animal. It was also heavily scented with Chinese angelica, a "feminine" tonic that the chef thoughtfully included for our hen party.
It was good to be pampered.