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Chinese tasting menus


Dejah

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I'm not sure if I can phrase this question clearly:

In reading all the foodblogs, I find tasting menus, where small portions of multi-courses are served over a period of time, fascinating. The menu showcases the chef's innovative use of local food products and clever presentation.

Does this style of dining appear in upscale Chinese restaurants, or only in Asian/fusion restaurants?

Would the traditional Chinese banquet fit "tasting menu", except the food is served communal style rather than individual plates?

The Asian chefs can be creative with subtle changes to tradtional methods of preparation and presentation, but can we put this into the "tasting menu" catagory?

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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I believe it's called Dim Sum.

With dim sum though, you choose what you'd like to eat from a selection of offerings. With tasting menus, you usually get no (or little) choice: the idea is to experience the chef's ideas about food, and to do so you relinquish all the decision-making. The 'small bites' concept is similar, but I'd say dim sum is more like tapas than a tasting menu.

Cutting the lemon/the knife/leaves a little cathedral:/alcoves unguessed by the eye/that open acidulous glass/to the light; topazes/riding the droplets,/altars,/aromatic facades. - Ode to a Lemon, Pablo Neruda

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Plus, with dim sum, you generally choose from a selection of very traditional dim sum offerings. With a tasting menu, one of the main points is to try original (i.e., non-traditional) dishes. The similarity between dim sum and tasting menus is limited to the small sized portions of food.

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I know a restaurant in Launceston in Tasmania, Australia, that occasionally does what I think you're talking about.

The regular menu at Me Wah has the dishes you'd expect to see in a Chinese restaurant in a western country. It's definitely not fusion.

But occasionally (and I'm sure at any time, if a decent sized group was to make a request), it does a degustation style tasting menu, often matched to wines by the glass.

Here's an example of the menu from an excellent meal last year, which I hope is readable.

me%20wah%20special%20tasting%20menu.jpg

These dishes were clearly Chinese in inspiration and flavour, but unique, and each was definitely designed to be eaten alone.

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Would the traditional Chinese banquet fit "tasting menu", except the food is served communal style rather than individual plates?

Dejah, the typical family style meal at home or in a "real" Chinese restaurant would be a form of "tasting" menu. In this case, everyone gets a bit of everything on the table. I have been to several very formal banquets ( Hosted by Chinese government officials) in China where each menu item listed on the banquet menu was individually served to each guest. That's about as close to a "tasting menu" as I have come in Chinese dining.

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[...]Would the traditional Chinese banquet fit "tasting menu", except the food is served communal style rather than individual plates?

[...]

Some of the modern, "upscale" Chinese restaurants train their stuff to serve the food to each individual at the table.

For example, "Zen Peninsula" in Millbrae where I had the "8th moon 15th day" dinner last year (offering banquet dinners at around US$400 /10-persons). Whenever there was dish got brought to the table, the waiter would serve the first round to each individual. (That is a lot of work! But you pay for what you get...)

They must have changed bowls/plates 6-7 times throughout the whole course.

W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
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For example, "Zen Peninsula" in Millbrae where I had the "8th moon 15th day" dinner last year (offering banquet dinners at around US$400 /10-persons).  Whenever there was dish got brought to the table, the waiter would serve the first round to each individual.  (That is a lot of work!  But you pay for what you get...)
At banquets in the UK, the restaurant staff serve up the soup and sweet broth (tong sui) for the first round. I've never seen them serve up any of the other dishes though.

Best Wishes,

Chee Fai.

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back in the late 80s when i was a teen, i went to korea with my family on holiday. while there, one of my father's friends took us to an upscale chinese restaurant in the 'Yooksum' building [=63 building, as it had 63 flooors].

we had a private room and it was a proper degustation, though we didn't know that at the time..

when the first courses came out, we didn't know what was going on, as the serves were so small! [how was this wierd meal going to sate our appetites?]:) but by the end we were all full..

i don't remember much about the actual elements of the meal, except that it was extremely tasty and that there were 12 courses in all..

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Looks like Tae's meal was the only one comparable to tasting menus as described in various blogs.

I wouldn't consider banquets where the server dishes up the food to individual guests as a tasting menu.

With our culture, food is served communal style, so I wonder if the style of service in tasting menus would ever "make it". Older generation probably say " Gum daw woon deep! Si doh ga see ah!" - too many dishes to wash! :laugh:

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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At Jai Yun, here in San Francisco, the chef presents a family style tasting menu.

Jai Yun Website

We went this last February and had a menu similar to the one written up on this website:

Part 1

Part 2

It was a really wonderful experience, and I recommend it to anyone in the area.

---

Erik Ellestad

If the ocean was whiskey and I was a duck...

Bernal Heights, SF, CA

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At Jai Yun, here in San Francisco, the chef presents a family style tasting menu.

Jai Yun Website

We went this last February and had a menu similar to the one written up on this website:

Part 1

Part 2

It was a really wonderful experience, and I recommend it to anyone in the area.

Thanks for this, eje. This certainly is like a tasting menu.

A question: With the entrees, the portions look quite big. Were they served individually, or portioned from a large platter by the server? Is that what you meant by "family style"?

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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A question: With the entrees, the portions look quite big. Were they served individually, or portioned from a large platter by the server? Is that what you meant by "family style"?

The pictures are the portions presented for the whole table to share, not individual portions.

Like the reviewer we were a group of four, so our portions were about the same size.

---

Erik Ellestad

If the ocean was whiskey and I was a duck...

Bernal Heights, SF, CA

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[...]With our culture, food is served communal style, so I wonder if the style of service in tasting menus would ever "make it". Older generation probably say " Gum daw woon deep!  Si doh ga see ah!" - too many dishes to wash!  :laugh:

There is an old Cantonese saying: Yang Mo Zhug Zhee Yang San Sheung (The wool came from sheeps). Interpretation: you pay for what you get. :wink:

W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
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[...]Like the reviewer we were a group of four, so our portions were about the same size.

Tasting menu... for group of X. That's kind of like back to square one: Chinese communal style? :smile:

I am not sure about other cuisines, but it's hard to cook Chinese entrees in "individual" portion. For one thing, Chinese are big on "freshly" prepared - just right off the wok to the dining table within a minute or so. Unless for certain braised dishes where a big portion is pre-cooked in advance, most stir-fried entrees are cooked to order. Unless you can have all the dining parties arrive and eat at the same time (and who can control that?), or else it's really hard to spread the freshly prepared dishes among diners.

Unless we are talking about Chinese food buffet... :raz: That is a kind of sampling too. But of course after the food has been shining under the heating lamp... tastes turn quickly.

W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
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