A taste of Guilin

Kuang Qing (left) and Su Xiaoxiong cook up a storm for Beijing's foodies, with dishes like beer-braised mandarin fish (top) and Guilin rice noodles (above). Photos by Ye Jun / China Daily

Two chefs from Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region are offering Beijingers a chance to try the spicy and sour cuisine of their hometown, Ye Jun reports.

Two chefs from Guilin face a dilemma in Beijing - to be authentic or to be popular.

Kuang Qing and Su Xiaoxiong are from Shang Palace, a Chinese restaurant at the Shangri-La Hotel in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. They are currently in Beijing working at the Traders Hotel cooking up a storm for a food event that is running until April 21 at The Oriental Chinese Restaurant.

Before the start of the event they prepared a tasting of what they intended to cook for the hotel's food and beverage management to sample. "They said it was too spicy," says Kuang, who is responsible for frying dishes at the event. His colleague Su took care of preparing and matching ingredients.

So the chefs took the spiciness down a notch. The next day, the first day of the food festival, a table of media and foodies from across the country arrived to dine at the festival.

After the tasting, a few of the foodies, who had been to Guilin, said they thought authentic local fare from Guilin is saltier and spicier than what they tasted.

They also asked if the sour beans could be a little more sour. Others queried the absence of Guilin's famous sour marinated bamboo shoot.

Guilin is one of China's most popular tourist destinations. The climate is damp and hot, and the local food is spicy and sour.

The two most common sour marinated foods are bamboo shoots and cowpea. The core ingredients are marinated in water, salt and local liquor inside an earthen jar for around 20 days.

"It is the local people's way of preserving the vegetables after the harvest season," Su says. "In the past, almost all Guilin families made their own sour marinated dishes. Interestingly, each family's sour soup tastes different."

Sour bamboo shoots are then used to boil fish, fry beef, or pork chitterling. The sourness rids the meat of unpleasant smells and enhances its flavor.

But the marinated sour bamboo shoots, traditional to Guilin, smell rather strong. If it is prepared in the hotel restaurant, the chefs say the whole place will smell of it.

"It is like smelly bean curd. Although it smells rather strong, it's tasty and refreshing in the mouth," Su says.

The chefs tried to compensate for not having this dish with a sour marinated cowpea fried with small fish from Lijiang River. They have brought the small fish from Guilin, which are sun-dried, boiled and then deep-fried to taste crispy.

People who have been to Guilin might return with its "three treasures" - fresh chili sauce, Sanhua liquor, and marinated bean curd. The three ingredients can be consumed on their own or be used as seasoning in cooking.

River snail stuffed with minced pork is cooked with Sanhua liquor, marinated bean curd, mint and basil. The snail flesh is taken out, minced, mixed with pork and put back into the shell to cook. It is traditional in Guilin to braise minced pork to use as stuffing in vegetables, such as aubergine, bitter melon and chili.

Yellow-braised chicken in a clay pot is also made using the liquor, marinated bean curd and dried chili as seasoning, together with aniseed and sand ginger.

A highlight of the tasting is beer-braised mandarin fish, in which beer is used to make the fish tender, leaving a sweet aftertaste.

Another must-try is Guilin rice noodles, a snack the city is famous for - rice noodles in a broth of pork, beef, sour bamboo shoots, sour cowpea, and crisp soybean.

The delicacy is served on every street corner in Guilin, and customers are expected to add the seasoning ingredients themselves. But in the hotel the chefs will do it for you.

Hong Liang, a celebrity blogger invited to the tasting, says it is perfectly understandable that local cuisine served in hotels is altered and the amount of salt and spiciness is reduced.

"Not many people have been to Guilin, and not all are ready for the local preference for spicy and sour foods," he says.

Even so, he ate three bowls of rice noodles. To him, they were a reminder of the beautiful scenery and the good times he had enjoyed there.