Steamed fresh fish with ginger
Appreciating the value of local cuisine and cooking is the goal of the Slow Food organisation’s annual Terra Madre Day celebration. For 2013, the group’s local chapter decided to celebrate with one of the flag bearers of traditional Hong Kong cuisine, chef Margaret Xu Yuan.
The Slow Food movement began in 1989 as a global action back to fresh and natural food, free of artificial production methods and promoting fair and accessible prices for consumers and small-scale producers. In Hong Kong, the revolution consists of more gentle activism such as social events, foodie destination tours, and meals at authentic destinations off the standard gastronomic path.
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Chef Margaret Xu Yuan
In choosing to lunch at chef Xu’s Yin Yang restaurant, in a historic tenement on Ship Street, they found an icon for Hong Kong food preservation and restoration. The theme for this year’s Terra Madre Day (on Tuesday, December 10) was ‘Saving Endangered Foods’ and Xu – who grows some of her own organic ingredients in her own New Territories farm – has purposely been cooking old village recipes and using preparation methods that are quickly disappearing from local home kitchens and menus.
The 20 or so guests ironically included new three-star Michelin chef Alvin Leung – whose Bo Innovation on Ship Street is designed to modernise and reinvent old Chinese flavours into new unrecognised forms.
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Sweet potato leaves with beets and octopus
Part of the lunch’s mission was to put a spotlight back on ingredients and dishes taken for granted forever in a town saturated with Cantonese restaurants. Presenting fare such as sweet potato leaves in a showcase presentation made its slight bitterness and texture a new revelation, served with very sweet beets and raw octopus.
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Stone ground Hunan rice tofu
A stone ground steamed rice tofu dish had everyone thinking it was standard turnip cake until they tasted its softer texture punched up with a fermented bean sauce and some mala peppers.
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Xu’s squid with squid ink creation wowed everyone with its almost Jackson Pollack splashy presentation. Taste-wise, it was traditional and post-modern with fresh and barely cooked squid and ordinary bean sprouts raised to heightened textural crunch notes.
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Roast suckling pig
Other stellar hits included Xu’s famous yellow earth chicken, a wild porcini chicken tea (apparently made without water, what?), a lightly steamed fresh fish and a delectable roast piglet.
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Alvin Leung’s Demon MSG red wine
The ‘demon chef’ Leung didn’t just eat though. He brought over and shared with diners a few bottles of his own Demon champagne and red wine labled as ‘Demon MSG’.
As if to reinforce its organisation namesake, the leisurely lunch lasted almost three hours. Yes, slow food is a nice option assuming you don’t have to return to a pressure-packed, fast-paced job in the afternoon.
FIND IT
Yin Yang Restaurant
18 Ship Street, Wanchai
www.yinyang.hk
