A feast for the eyes and the stomach

Dinner at Da Dong's oldest branch at Tuanjiehu is usually a highly anticipated affair. Chef and General Manager Dong Zhenxiang has not only established the restaurant as a popular place for gourmands but has also been making constant efforts to create new dishes.

Some of these new creations appeared at an autumn food-tasting recently. They include goose liver frozen and cut into finger-sized rolls with osmanthus-flavored cuts of lotus root. The freezing doubles the pleasant smoothness of the goose liver, which tastes very much like ice cream and melts in the mouth.

Passion fruit salad is creatively served in a glass tube, lined with a line of Chinese poetry, making it the perfect food for thought as well as the taste buds. Guava salad comes with fresh guava fruit sitting atop guava jelly.

Two classic dishes retain their quality. Sliced Canadian geoduck clam with green Sichuan pepper had even better texture and flavor than at a previous tasting and came served beautifully on a piece of green leaf in an ice ball.

Chef Dong's braised sea cucumber never fails to satisfy, with its wholesome flavor that sets it apart from the seafood found elsewhere. Paired with lemon sherbet, it makes for a refreshing combination.

But upgrades inevitably come with shortcomings. Take the rice with abalone, black truffle and morel. While the rice absorbs the flavor of the mushrooms and seafood, the black truffle tastes woody, and the abalone, too, is not so great.

The osmanthus cake tastes chewy, and while the stewed halibut with potherb mustard tasted good, its presentation falls short of the eatery's usual standards.

The fresh, meaty seasonal hairy crab, though, is a winner. The crab is matched with a ginger and black sugar soup, whose warming effect counterbalances the coldness of the seafood.

The dinner ended with a beautiful, and bountiful, plate of desserts, which included grapes and a few typical Chinese sweets, such as "sugar ear", ginger crisp and cheese rolls with mashed red bean.

The dishes are available at all three branches of the restaurant. If one goes for their signature dishes, the average bill will come to more than 500 yuan($73.8) per person.

Tuanjiehu branch: Daily 11 am-10 pm. Building 3, Tuanjiehu Beikou, southeast corner of Changhong Qiao on East Third Ring Road, Beijing. 010-6582-2892