LINGNAN HOUSE Review

Bill's thoughts and new ideas At a dinner party, everyone discussed which of the five-star hotels in Guangzhou Zhujiang New Town has the best Chinese food? Soon everyone had a consistent answer: Guangyuxuan in Rosewood Hotel. And everyone's reasons were very consistent, because the chef here, Bill, is a talented and highly studious young chef. Rosewood Hotel is not only the tallest hotel in Guangzhou, but also has the tallest banquet hall in the world. It really tests Bill's skills to control such a top hotel Chinese restaurant. The soft-boiled mantis shrimp on the menu was originally a signature dish of Guangzhou Chaozhou private cuisine "Yijiweijue". Bill's change was to add salmon roe and Jiangnan drunken crab rice wine sauce, which made the flavor very different. I used the leftover drunken crab juice after eating drunken crab to cook braised pork, which tasted good, but I never thought of using it to flavor mantis shrimp. , the plums in the rice wine brought an elegant fruity aroma, which was not abrupt with the sweet mantis shrimp meat. In the roast meat stalls frequented by Guangzhou people every day, pork usually appears in three forms: barbecued pork, roasted spare ribs and roasted pork. How can the taste of the market be brought to the elegant hall of the mountain hotel? Bill's method is to find the best black pigs and take out three parts, which can be said to be one pig for three dishes. The finishing touch is that the crispy roasted pork skin is no longer paired with the traditional sweet sauce, but with a bit of spicy Japanese pepper yuzu salt, which is appetizing and greasy, and the fragrance lasts. In fact, I didn't quite accept the Cantonese habit of dipping in sweet sauce when eating roasted pork and roasted suckling pig. I think excessive sweetness will increase the greasiness of pork, and chili sauce will obliterate the aroma of pork, so the moderate spiciness of pepper yuzu skin can just activate the taste buds, not covering up but setting off the aroma of pork. The staple food is also a killer. The sea urchin and crab meat are shredded to make rice. The sticky and smooth taste is unbearable for people who quit carbon water. I used to like to eat sashimi rice in Japanese restaurants. The key to making sashimi rice is to add yam juice to the rice. It is this subtle plant mucus that makes the rice have an unusually comfortable taste. The same is true for using sea urchin to make rice. In fact, we Chinese like the texture of hot rice with gravy the most. This is the conclusion drawn by teacher Chen Xiaoqing through big data analysis. I have known Bill for many years. In addition to constantly tasting his skills, I often meet with him in various private dinners. Some people say that his success is because he has been promoted and reported on TV programs, but I think he is a rare star chef who is extremely talented but never tired of learning. Many years ago, Chen Shi, the principal of Guangzhou Cooking School, told me with great sorrow that Cantonese cuisine might be over, because local children are unwilling to be chefs anymore, and those who learn Cantonese cuisine are basically young people from other places or even other provinces. The appearance of Bill, a local boy from Guangzhou, has enabled a miracle of good inheritance of the taste perception that needs to be formed through exposure from childhood. Bill is also very handsome, and his nickname "Zhang Zhilin of Zhujiang New Town" has spread like wildfire. We look forward to his greater performance in the culinary world in the future.