Highlights

Dishes to die for

By Lin Qi (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-10-07 09:59

A Chengdu restaurant celebrates ancient China's epic Battle of Red Cliffs in a most ingenious way. Lin Qi reports

Piles of stones and grass appear on the dinner table, a row of yellow croakers sitting among them. A chef pours Chinese rice wine on the fish and sets them alight briefly. Their skins turn crispy, leaving the insides soft and smooth.

Shen Mingjie has become one of the most popular chefs in Chengdu, Sichuan province, with a repertoire of some 30 dishes inspired by stories in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. [Photo/China Daily]

This is just one representation of the dinner version of the battle presented on screen by John Woo in the 2008 blockbuster Red Cliff.

The stones stand for the famous Red Cliffs, and the croakers, for warlord Cao Cao's warships that bond together in the Battle of Red Cliffs, the decisive campaign that laid the foundations of the Three Kingdoms period (AD 220-280).

Based on the tale "Borrowing Arrows with Thatched Boats", Shen Mingjie invented a dish featuring shrimp in a boat.

Shrimps can replace the croakers if diners so desire, says Shen Mingjie, creator of the dish and executive chef of the Sangu Yuan restaurant in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

"It took me some three nerve-racking months to come up with the dishes. Even now, I am not very satisfied with them. I feel the presentation should be more natural," says Shen, one of the city's most popular chefs.

"The Battle of Red Cliffs", like the other distinctive dishes in Shen's "Three Kingdoms" offering, have all been inspired by the ancient classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Shen says while he has always been fascinated by Romance of the Three Kingdoms picture books, it was not until six years ago that he discovered he could re-create some of the historical events in the kitchen.

"I was experiencing a burnout then," Shen recalls. Having been a chef since 1981, he felt he had exhausted his culinary creativity.

Around that time, one of Shen's friends was renovating a narrow alleyway next to Wuhou Temple, which commemorates Zhuge Liang, the ingenious military adviser to Liu Bei, founder of the Shu Kingdom.

The dish Changbanpo is based on the story of Shu general Zhao Yun fighting heroically at Changbanpo.

The alley became Jinli Street, where visitors can sample local snacks and admire replicas of the traditional buildings of western Sichuan.

The friend recommended Shen for work at Sangu Yuan restaurant on Jinli Street. That is when Shen got the idea of coming up with a cuisine linked to the place's history.

While the idea was not new - other restaurants were already serving such dishes - Chen was the first to come up with an entire course, complete with cold starter, main, soup and dessert.

Shen also makes sure his dishes only celebrate heroism. Thus bai zou mai cheng, an event in which Guan Yu, a righteous Shu general, is captured and killed by his enemy, has no place on his menu. Dishes based on such events may discomfort diners, Shen explains.

He uses shellfish, which is pronounced bei in Chinese, to represent Liu Bei; while Zhang Fei, another Shu general, is represented by beef, because some local tales present him as a good cook of beef, Chen says.

Even the presentation of the dishes harks back to ancient times, with Shen using a hoof-shaped stove as a table-top brazier. One wooden dish container is shaped like an ox, in a reference to the vehicle the military strategist Zhuge Liang used to transport materials to the front.

Among the restaurant's most popular dishes is Cao Chuan Jie Jian (literally, Borrowing Arrows with Thatched Boats), which has fish or shrimp baked with lemon grass served in a bamboo ship.

Cold dishes featuring Sichuan's many snacks, which are presented as the Taoist Eight Diagrams, are also much sought after.

Shen has so far invented some 30 dishes based on the Three Kingdoms theme, but says he is still not finished.

Little wonder that his cuisine has emerged as one of the most popular in Chengdu. He was even chosen by the provincial government to present Sichuan cuisine in Taipei in May and won much acclaim there.

"Only on Jinli Street and next to Wuhou Temple can people enjoy the best of both tradition and food," Shen says.

Zhao Yun fights against thousands of soldiers, in John Woo's film Red Cliff.

Zhuge Liang (right) directs operations in the Battle of Red Cliffs.