Modern masterpieces
By combining contemporary plating skills with the artistry of trompe l'oeil, chef Yeung Wai-kit at the Michelin-starred restaurant, Fu Chun Ju, is helping to paint a new chapter in Cantonese cuisine, Li Yingxue reports.
Most of the dishes on Fu Chun Ju's menu are taken from Cantonese cuisine, but it also offers some highlighted dishes from Huaiyang fare.
"When I first designed the menu, there was no kitchen. So, I just wrote the recipes on my computer and sketched ideas for their presentation. When the kitchen was completed in 2018, my team and I started to try to make the dishes and adjusted the recipes as we went along," Yeung recalls.
Plating was foremost in Yeung's mind when he was preparing the menu, as he wanted to give every dish a new look that went far beyond ordinary diners' expectations－while retaining all the authentic flavors of Cantonese cooking.
"The process of plating is like painting on the plate," he says. "But I didn't want to place unnecessary decoration on the plate. So, I made sure that every ingredient presented was edible and perfectly suited to the flavors of each dish."
Featuring cucumber, pickled radish, mushroom and wild black fungus, his Fu Chun Garden dish is just one example of his painting-like presentations. The radish and cucumber are cut and shaped into two flowers, while the mushroom and black fungus represent the soil where the flowers grow.
According to Yeung, the method for slicing the radish uses knife skills from traditional Huaiyang cuisine, where the chef slices and rolls the radishes simultaneously.
