The problem with business trips? Suppliers insist to take you out for dinner. Every. Single. Night.
Tonight, after the presentation at the Zhejiang University, Grace invites us to eat at the hotel restaurant inside the University campus.
“Umm… can we go to Zhi Wei Guan instead?” I timidly but shamelessly ask Grace. A bit improper, I know. But with only one night in Hangzhou and 3 restaurants on my to-try list, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
Grace says bamboo is a Hangzhou specialty and orders this for us to try. She demonstrates the proper way of eating this by peeling off the outer layers with her hands and then munching on the crunchy and soft insides. It tastes a bit foreign to me. But I like it.
This is surprisingly bad. The fatty part has hardened, the lean meat is not even chewable. What is supposed to be very tender and moist and glistening in its own fat has dried up and become all parched and wrinkly.
Beggar’s Chicken
How truly disturbing this dish looks to you is exactly how amazing it tastes in your mouth. Wrapped in lotus leaf and baked covered in clay for hours and hours, the chicken has all the intense, wonderful and aromatic flavors trapped in it, and its meat is so tender you need only to tug lightly at the part you fancy and it surrenders to you willingly.
We choose to make the fish head into soup and this is the only way to go, I tell you. The fish is so soft and the broth so milky with just the right hint of ginger. It is made even tastier with bacon, mushrooms, meatballs, vegetables, and lots and lots of garlic.
I am truly, madly, deeply in love.
Yes, with the soup of a fish head from 1000-Isle Lake.
Thank you, Ms. Grace Wang, for the unforgettable first meal in Hangzhou!
Zhi Wei Guan 知味观: 杭州上城区仁和路83号. Tel: +86-571-87065871
