Beijing, a city in the midst of change, in the years since the People's Republic opened China to the World about twenty years ago, has acquired an up-to-date luster. It has become a city of women -in mini-dresses, jazzy make-up and high heels, of men in business suits and sports clothes talking on cell phones. Japanese taxicabs honk their way through hordes of cyclists. Signs advertising all sorts of products hang in every street. "There is a resurgence of many aspects of Chinese life among them, the arts, education and especially economic matters-- and the result has been an accelerated modernization of a country that had long resisted the influence of the outside world.
By the early 1980's, gastronomy and even epicures were no longer counterrevolutionary, " says noted Chinese cookbook author, Ken Hom. He goes on to say, "Today private gardens are once again supplying fruits and vegetables in abundance, private restaurants and food stalls are becoming commonplace, and culinary institutes and cooking schools are flourishing. The long pent-up demand for quality foods and ingredients is slowly being met." Private business is thriving and it is shrewdly welcoming Japanese and Western capitalists in joint ventures to help turn a barren socialist wasteland into a consumer society. Big Mac attack? No problem there are 37 McDonald's in Beijing, along with Pizza Hut, Baskin Robbins, Hard Rock Cafe and TGIF. The capital is acquiring all the advantages of a major international metropolis, including a restaurant sector well able to satisfy the tastes of tourists, business travelers and foreign residents.
To experience the pleasure of Chinese food completely, it is not enough to choose something comfortingly familiar, such as sweet-and-sour pork, hoping that will taste the same as in the neighborhood restaurant back home. It may well do so, but this misses the point of a Chinese meal, with its yin-yang balance of flavors, textures and ingredients. The foods from Beijing are satisfying indeed, with sharpened, direct flavors that Westerners undoubtedly will find pleasing.
With cold winters, a short growing season, and a relatively arid climate, northern China developed a cuisine based on wheat, millet, and soybeans. Northern cooks developed wheat pancakes, like those that accompany their famous Peking duck, and thin wheat skins for meat-filled pot-sticker dumplings. Modern Beijing (Peking) chefs are proud of their hand-pulled noodles (la mian) said to have originated in the north during the Han dynasty some 2000 years ago, shortly after the technique of flour milling reached China, via India, along the new Silk Road between what is now Afghanistan and Xian. Trade along this route, which took silk robes to the Roman emperors and much later brought Marco Polo from Venice, enriched the northern provinces with herbs, fruits, vegetables, and spices.
Beijing's restaurants have at last caught up with its gastronomic history. In this commercial capital of China, the cooking of the northern region with all its inherent elegance is there for the eating. For visitor and resident alike, such cooking has become more accessible and more pleasurable with the recent openings of several luxury hotels that are committed to excellent and authentic cooking served in elegant settings.
At the Yuen Tai restaurant on the 21st floor of the Great Wall Sheraton, a master noodle-maker twists, kneads and bounces a rope of dough, doubling it back over itself again and again, until almost magically, it turns into a single, long strand, which the noodle maker holds wrapped around and between his hands, like a skein of yarn. The chef of the Chinese kitchen, Zhao Chuan Quing, who has mastered the regional cuisine's of China, creates spicy Sichuan preparations, like hot and sour shark fin soup and braised mandarin fish with chili bean sauce. Just as fine is his version of Peking Roast Duck (Chengdu Smoked Duck). In the 1800's a young entrepreneur took the centuries-old court secret of separating the skin of the duck from the flesh by pumping air between them to release the fat during roasting, and brought this royal feast to the restaurants of Peking. As a result, hardly a visitor to the Chinese capital has returned home without sampling this unequaled delicacy. The crisp skin and succulent meat of the roasted duck are cut thinly and eaten in pancakes along with spring onions, cucumber and sweet plum sauce.
In the kitchen of the luxurious brand new ITT Sheraton Beijing International Club Executive Chef, Franz Dajcman prepares a seven course Emperor's Dinner. As he deftly arranges the ingredients for Steamed John Dory Fillet on Beluga Champagne Cream, he discusses the migration of Western ingredients to the Asian kitchen: "For centuries cooks have been borrowing ingredients from other cultures. In Asia there is a true fusion where ingredients complement one another beautifully. European chefs working in Asia have a sure understanding of European ingredients and techniques and a palate that has been refined in Asia. They are creative but disciplined." Out in the Great Hall the table is set and guests are invited to don Qing Dynasty costumes before being shown to the tables by waiters costumed as palace guards. Chef Dajcman's New Asian cuisine features lobster sashimi, grilled Beef Medallion with Parma Ham and Goose Liver on a Light Truffle Red Wine Sauce, Polenta, and Fresh Mango and Chocolate Mousse.
Away from the broad boulevards of Beijing on the outskirts of the city hides one of the most exclusive restaurants in the world. It has one table. The Li Family Restaurant is run by mathematics professor Li Shan-lin whose grandfather was Minister of Household Affairs for the Imperial Court (his job was to oversee the official tasters for the dowager empress CiXi) and left him a legacy of recipes. His daughter, armed with these imperial recipes, won first place out of 3,000 contestants in a national cooking contest held in 1984. After that, Li Shan-lin decided to open a restaurant in his small home located down a narrow street in a hutong (a walled alley way community). Li Shan-lin cooks Mandarin fish in a recipe favored at the turn of the century by the dowager empress Cixi; he stir-fries it over the wood fire with ginger, garlic, scallions and garden herbs. He also stir-fries a sweet-and-sour fish with green peppers, bamboo shoots, ginger, vinegar and sugar. Li Shan-lin's batterie de cuisine is limited to a small assortment of well-used woks, steamers, and standard pots with which he creates various wheat-flour dumplings filled with vegetables, pork, or shrimp, adding a bit of egg, minced ginger, and bamboo shoots. He also makes special dumplings and salads.
In the past several years there has been an awakening of interest in this very old cuisine of Beijing, from which it seems all Chinese culinary trends now proceed. The ingredients for the following recipes are available in Gables or South Miami supermarkets or in Asian groceries nearby.
"To touch the heart" is the literal translation of dim sum, the quintessential breakfast or brunch. Steamed in bamboo baskets or deep-fried, the ravioli-like dumplings, buns, pancakes and other dishes that comprise dim sum are made with hundreds of different filling variations, including shrimp, pork and sweet pastes. The repertoire of dim sum is endless. Typical dim sum houses are far from restful places; the press of people is vast and the noise level high. Waiters push heavily laden trolleys through the press.
All Chinese restaurants provide diners with chopsticks and a spoon. Very few restaurants furnish forks and of course knives are not needed for Chinese food. Confucius said it was uncivilized to have knives on the dining table.
Chopsticks can be awkward at first. Perseverance is needed to get the technique right, but a Chinese meal is best enjoyed with them, and the two sticks can be surprisingly agile in practiced hands. The bottom stick is the "anvil", held firmly between the first joint of the ring finger and the lower thumb, while resting in the crook of forefinger and thumb. The top stick is held like a pen between the tip of the thumb and forefinger and pivots against the lower sticks.
Tea is the most popular drink in China. Luk Yu, a Tang dynasty Master of Tea, wrote that drinking tea aids the digestion, especially "when sipped in the company of sweet and beautiful maidens in a pavilion by a water-lily pond or near a lacquered bridge. Most tea drinkers will not be so fortunate, but as long as the tea is good they may be willing to make allowances. In the Chinese tea ceremony, the miniature cups and teapot are doused with scaldingly hot water; tea is then placed in the pot and boiling water added. After an appropriate interval, the tea is poured and drunk at once. There are many varieties of Chinese tea, and though jasmine tea is usually served as a matter of course in restaurants, you could ask for black, fragrant green, linden or magnolia tea instead.
