Epicure
Fit for a president
By Chitralekha Basu (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-20 10:53
While the United States president's maiden China visit is now history, restaurants across Beijing still have Barack Obama fever. Chefs have rustled up a feast fit for the president to mark the event.
Chef Ku, executive chef at Ritz-Carlton Beijing's Cantonese restaurant, Yu, designed a four-course menu in Obama's honor. The range of appetizers includes jellyfish and braised plantain, crepe with egg yolk and bean curd soup, stir-fried wagyu beef and glistening slivers of tender Peking duck. For dessert, he chose the mildly sweet sago pudding with lotus seeds.
His favorite, however, is an assorted seafood dish - steamed leopard fish, coral and trout served with protein-rich crab yolk.
"This is a traditional Cantonese dish and November is the right season to taste it," says Ku, citing its high nutritive value.
Jen Lin-Liu, author of A Stir-Fried Journey Across China and owner of Black Sesame restaurant, is also keen on the health factor. Steamed scallops with garlic and rice vermicelli; enoki, shiitake and oyster mushroom stir-fried and lightly seasoned with sesame oil besides stir-fried lily buds and snow peas with wolfberries feature in her menu.
Lian Defeng, executive sous chef at Texan Grill, Holiday Inn in Lido, has whipped up a range of classic Texan soups - featuring seafood, okra or grilled beef.
In deference to the American president's weakness for spice and heat, Chef Lian is dishing out Mexican chili beans (red beans cooked with chili and minced beef).
Besides, the a la carte menu includes exotic grilled corn flakes with Mexican sauce or braised bean sauce. The bread is made from corn and served with butter and guacamole sauce, made from avocado.
Christian Bruhns, executive chef with Hilton Beijing, and well-traveled across China and European countries, is set on a menu with a global character. It features the very English pumpkin soup, scallops, cod fish, rib-eye steak (US-Canadian), lamb shank slow-cooked in a heavy sauce with lots of vegetables (French-Italian) and chestnut pie and sweet potato for dessert.
"The timing of the president's visit anticipates thanksgiving and Christmas," points out Bruhns.
Ronald Ngan, a Chinese chef with Westin, Financial Street, who catered to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Shanghai, would have liked to have served Cantonese dim sums, shrimp dumplings and spring rolls with chicken and eggplant filling to the US president, in addition to siew mai (dumplings with a filling of shrimps, pork and crab meat) soup cooked in a broth of wood fungus, beef and carrot.
Other Chinese delights include grouper fillets served with green Sichuan pepper sauce.
The eponymous Peking duck, says Ngan, is best had at Westin's own Jewel restaurant, where the guest gets to watch the precise way of slicing a duck before it is served.
When it comes to wine, Jen Lin-Liu swears by the recent vintage Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand, the president's favorite. Tian Chunna, who runs Mellow Rouge, a company dealing in fine wines sourced from across the world, recommends Junding wines, "a brother of the Great Wall wines, whose name means the Emperor's Cap" and rated by the China Cereals, Oils and Foods (Group) Company as the finest.
The seasoned American expat in Beijing, however, gives a thumbs-up to Beijing's ingenious use of sesame. David Tool, a well-known English teacher in Beijing, favors ma tuan (deep-fried round donuts) filled with black sesame. He also recommends Beggar's Chicken (see main story).
Chris Verrill, executive director, Beijing Playhouse, regrets having missed the chance to take the president out to dinner at Lucky Dragon, at the West Gate of Chaoyang Park.
"Obama ought to have tried the lettuce with sesame sauce. It's simple, deceptively delicious and costs just 10 yuan."
Ye Jun contributed to the story
