china food:The Canton connection

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A good chef sometimes means everything to the success of a restaurant. In that sense, Lijingxuan Cantonese Restaurant wields the crucial element needed to become a great eatery. Chef Yuen Hon-lun, from Hong Kong, was born to a family of cooks and started his career at age 12.

At 57, he took the post of chief executive chef at a number of top hotels and restaurants, including the Shangri-La Hotel Shanghai and Fok Lam Man.

According to manager Henry Chan, the best chefs were in Hong Kong after the founding of the PRC in 1949. Once the Chinese mainland started to recover its food culture in the 1980s, new cooks in Guangdong learned the old tricks of Hong Kong's chefs.

"Therefore, Cantonese cooking from Hong Kong is more authentic," Chan said.

Also, Hong Kong chefs tend to be more open-minded with the selection of their ingredients and are more likely to include international victuals, because the region has been open to the outside world for a longer time.

"Many rice guys preferred the best Cantonese foods to be like they were," the manager said. "So, we had to use exactly the same ingredients and cooked them with exactly the same method."

In line with those characteristics, Yuen carefully selects ingredients.

He uses distilled water for soups. Almost all seasonings are brought in from Hong Kong. The abalones come from the best found in Japan, the bird's nests come from Indonesia, the sea cucumbers are harvested from the Japanese seabed and the beef comes from Australia.

Yuen knows a lot about cooking abalones, bird's nests and shark fins. And Fok Lam Man is one of the most famous places for these dishes. But he also cooks nice classical dishes, called "small fries".

"I always make an effort to bring out the original flavors of foods, so that whatever you eat, it tastes like that," the chef said.

This fabulous foodie has developed his own tricks of the trade.

For example, when he braises sirloin, he uses a large flame until all of the soup has been saturated into the beef, making it very fragrant. Most other mainland chefs turn the fire down to simmer the steak once the water is boiled. Yuen believes simmering causes the beef to lose its flavor to the soup.

Two months into his Beijing experience, the chef is cooking up a new menu for the restaurant, to be finalized very soon.

The restaurant's decor is modern with traditional Chinese furniture. Lijingxuan offers a 188-yuan set business lunch for two at noon.

Before wine, the average meal would cost 150 yuan per person around noontime and 250 yuan in the evening.

Recommended dishes: pan-fried shrimp rolled with sting beans,pan-fried crispy chicken,deep-fried crab meat stuffed in own shell and fried shark fin with egg white.

11am-2:30pm, 5:30-10:30pm.
Address:3/F The Regent Beijing, 99 Jinbao Jie, Dongcheng District.
Tel: 010-8522-1789.