my dad's fren treated my family for lunch today at this high class restaurant called 华宴. they even have guards outside to open the car door for us... woohoo... it's a very chinese style restaurant. the inner decoration is very classy, opting for a antique like style, lined with golden deco and carvings. we had a room to ourselves and there is even gold dragon on the wall. and they have one waitress to serve the whole course and she would be standing by in the room most of time for the customers' convenience. the waitresses also wear very chinese style clothes also, looks like they walked right out of a period movie. actually really should have taken photos but it's kinda paiseh.
the restaurant specialise in 淮阳菜 and 官府菜. for those dunno, both are members of the very wide range of 菜系 in chinese food. 淮阳菜 was the style appointed for the first 国宴 by the prime minister of China back in 1949. and 官府菜 as the name suggests was the dishes the 达官贵人 in ancient beijing used to enjoy. both are not of extreme tastes. as in 咸淡适中, 不油不腻. ordered a few dishes and the one that i love most is the sharks' lips. the soup is so thick it's almost jelly like. the base is prepared using 三岁以上的老母鸡. it's golden yellow in colour. and inside got sharks's lips and fins. (quite a lot of 料 some more). although i think sharks are v poor thing but nevertheless i did enjoy the dish a lot a lot. almost wanted to lick the bowl... haha
another dish i like a lot was 清蒸狮子头. it belongs to 淮阳菜系. in 淮阳菜 got this famous 三头: 狮子头,鲈鱼头,猪头. of course the latter two got their specified cooking methods lah but i only remember the material. for those dunno so called 狮子头 is not using lion's head hor, it's actually meatball. coz it's big, about a size of a fist, so looks a bit like the head of a lion. usu got a few cooking methods including 清蒸 and 红烧. before this i only had 红烧 ones in sch canteen only haha... but this 清蒸狮子头 is very famous and really up to the standard. think they got put 荸荠, 有点甜甜脆脆的,吃起来不会腻. some more its soup is like heavenly also...
another dish worth mentioning was a spicy 甲鱼. supposed to be good but din quite like it. and this was this dunno wat 麻鸭. it flew semi-processed all the way to beijing from hu bei. coz heard in beijing they just can't get e taste correct. it's a bit 麻辣, those dry kind, not oily at all. quite nice. oh ya and there was this 黄桥火烧. 黄桥 is a place somewhere in 江苏. 火烧 is a kinda 点心, with lots of 芝麻 on top. 非常酥脆!!! 好吃的不得了!
haha yeah had a feast!!!