Fried chicken with oil (yu lin chi) : This dish is also unique to Sichuan cuisine. The fried chicken without soup sold at delicatessens is called "zha ji" and is a popular chicken dish. The main difference between the two is that after frying, it is served with a unique sweet sauce.

At China Kitchen Hangzhou, we can of course make fried chicken, but we also offer deep-fried chicken as a distinctive menu item and our signature dish. Since the sauce is added later, we use a light seasoning to ensure the skin is crispy and the inside is juicy. Chicken thigh meat is supposed to have more flavor and fat than chicken breast meat. Therefore, we deep-fry the breast meat at medium temperature, pouring oil evenly over it.

Yurin is a cooking method that involves pouring oil over the food. The final step is still done at a high temperature, so the oil drains off easily and doesn't feel heavy at all. The sauce poured on top is sweet with a touch of vinegar, making it more light and suitable for Japanese people.

It is a dish that only those who have tried it can appreciate, as it goes well with both sake and rice.

　Twice-cooked pork (Hui Korou) : This is also a standard dish when you go to a Sichuan restaurant, and is often ordered by Japanese people. It says to turn the pot, but it doesn't mean to flip it over. It is cooked twice or three times and then mixed together at the end.

I heard that Chen Jianmin, who originally introduced Sichuan cuisine to Japan, adapted it to suit Japanese tastes.

In Sichuan, the ingredients used are garlic leaves instead of cabbage, and the seasonings are unique and spicy.

Today, the sweet miso flavor is prioritized for its ease of eating.

Our sweet bean paste is homemade and made once every two months. It is made with Hatcho miso, which is made mainly from soybeans, and soy sauce, sugar, and aged wine. It is stirred for three hours without a break, and is carefully kneaded to avoid burning.

The seasoning is quite strong for a dish (Haccho miso dishes in Nagoya are also quite strong).

If miso dishes are too bland, they don't taste good. (Miso Dengaku) (Gohei mochi) (Miso cutlet)

　Mapo tofu (mabo dofu) : This foreign word has become firmly established. It is now a tofu dish that everyone knows, and will soon be on par with curry rice and hamburger steaks. The Japanese are a nation that is good at assimilating foreign cultures. Mapo tofu is no exception.

No matter where you eat mapo tofu, it's always sweet. We don't use sugar at all. At Sichuan restaurants, we don't add sugar to tofu dishes because it ruins the tofu's original character (flavor). Dishes with sugar in them taste good at first. But you get tired of eating them many times. That's why we make them with the idea that it's important to bring out the sweetness from the ingredients, rather than adding it directly. If you bring out the sweetness with the sweet bean paste (miso made from Hatcho miso) and douzhi (dried natto made from fermented soybeans) seasonings used in the double-cooked pork, it's delicious enough. Douban sauce (a mustard miso made by fermenting and ripening broad beans and chili peppers) also plays an important role. The important thing about this dish is the procedure. Tofu is more than 90% water, and if you don't add it at the end, the mapo tofu will be watery. We simmer it slowly over low heat so that the flavor penetrates all the way through.

Stir-fried pork liver : This is the owner's top recommendation. Customers unanimously say that the liver here is a little different from other restaurants. They don't know the details, but they comment that it's delicious. This is a popular liver dish served at most Chinese restaurants. It seems like liver with chives is common. Some even have stir-fried vegetables with liver, like bean sprouts or stir-fried vegetables. Ours is simple, with just liver, chives, and condiments. It's not very filling, but one plate is enough to satisfy you, and it goes well with rice and as a snack with alcohol.

The first thing that determines the taste is freshness. I don't buy the ones displayed in the butcher's case, because I don't know when they were stocked and cut. I reserve a whole cow and buy it as is. When an order comes in, I cut it into portions. It's the same principle as filleting tuna. When you cut it, it drips, just like fish, and it's 90% blood, so you have to be careful. The other thing is the smell that is unique to liver. I get rid of that with seasonings, chives, and garlic. Next, I add vinegar to remove the strong smell. If you cook it too long it will toughen, so it's difficult to judge the timing so that it doesn't become raw or tough. Once it's cooked for 8 minutes, I take it off the heat and add the seasoning chives, then put the liver back in and quickly stir fry to finish.

　Stir-fried eggplant with fish spices : There are many eggplant dishes, but this is a dish we are confident will satisfy over 90% of our customers. Our stir-fried eggplant is not "Mapo eggplant." It is stir-fried eggplant seasoned with a seasoning unique to Sichuan called fish spices. *Sichuan is inland, so fish from the sea cannot be caught. Therefore, we cook it with a seasoning called fish spices that mimics the scent of the sea. As it is located in a geographical basin, it is naturally hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and there are also times when the daylight hours are only a few hours. Therefore, unique ingenuity is seen everywhere. Even when looking at the four major cuisines of China, there is no other dish with such complex and strange seasonings.

The seasoning is called "fish fragrance," but the sweet, spicy, sour, and salty flavors are well balanced, with no one flavor dominating, and the combination of several condiments makes it an exquisite dish. In the past, Sichuan chefs were tested on their skills by changing ingredients to see if they could create a fish fragrance that suited the ingredients. In other words, you have to look at the ingredients and create a fish fragrance that suits them.

As an aside, people in the past often say, "Don't let your daughter-in-law eat autumn eggplants." There are two theories about this: one is that they are cruel and delicious, so you shouldn't let your daughter-in-law eat them, and the other is that they are concerned about the daughter-in-law's health and that eating cold autumn eggplants is poisonous to the body.

Black vinegar tofu dumplings : This is also one of our original dishes. Some restaurants serve sweet and sour dumplings. These dumplings are made from minced meat and coated with a sweet and sour soy sauce sauce.

Another similar meatball is the "Red Roasted Lion's Head," a stewed dish often served at banquets.

I'm going off topic here, but "Red Roasted Lion Head" is a specialty of Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. I wonder why you can encounter an African lion in a place located in the east of China. In Journey to the West, written in the Ming dynasty, it is said that three people captured a lion with weapons. In modern times, lions are a major symbol of bravery in China, as seen in lion dances and the two stone lions placed in front of the gates of shrines and temples. (There may also be some connection to the Japanese lion guardian lion.)

At our restaurant, we strain firm tofu, mix it with several kinds of vegetables and minced meat, form it into balls, and deep fry them. We then mix them with a sweet and sour sauce made from Chinese Zhenjiang vinegar (black vinegar).

There are still many more interesting episodes about Red Grilled Lion Head, so please look forward to the next episode.

Lu Rou Fan = Braised Pork Rice (Lu Rou Fan) : This is a dish we are absolutely confident in. We're not going to lie about it, but no one who has tried it has said they disliked it. In Taiwan, it's a common dish and restaurants don't serve it. It's like a street food, and people line up everywhere. Add soup and one other side dish to this and you have a full meal. In Japan, it's only served at restaurants originating from Taiwan. It's so time-consuming that you have to prepare it early in the morning and have it ready in time for lunch. We used to serve it at our restaurant, but we gave up because we couldn't keep an eye on it to stop it from burning. Nevertheless, we've brought it back at the request of repeat customers.

It's simple, with pork, bean sprouts, Chinese chives, pickled mustard greens, and seasoned boiled eggs, but it's quite a deep dish. It's often compared to braised pork rice (扣肉飯), but it's a completely different dish. Braised pork rice is sweet and spicy with a strong spice, but Lu Rou Fan is a little lighter in flavor and is not thickened because it is mixed and eaten. It is an essential dish in local bento boxes and is always included.

In Taiwan, the ingredients are different (takuan instead of takana pickles) and fried eggs instead of boiled eggs. I think they probably changed it with Japanese people in mind, because they don't have a culture of eating takuan or raw eggs. It might become a national dish in the future.

　Dandan noodles (Tantanmen) : Dandan noodles are Chinese noodles for the common people. There are many varieties of ramen, such as abura soba, mazesoba, Japanese-style ramen, western-style ramen, and the definition of ramen is unclear. The "dan" in dandan noodles means to carry, and the description says that they were sold by carrying them on a pole. So if they were filled to the brim with soup, it would spill and they would not be able to be carried. Dandan noodles are the classic with little soup. Before long, they were divided into two types: soupy and dry dandan noodles.
The soup version was probably adapted in Japan.
Our dandan noodles do not have any toppings. They only have green onions on top. Everything else is dissolved in the soup. We prepare it so that you can drink up all the ingredients, including sesame miso, minced meat, and sweet bean paste. We also add vinegar at the end, which is a feature of our restaurant. This softens the heavy flavor and leaves a refreshing aftertaste. As for the noodles, we use thick noodles. Due to the nature of the noodles, thin noodles go well with the light soup, while thick noodles go well with the rich soup.

　Tanmen : Tanmen is written in Chinese as 湯麵. In other words, in China, soup noodles are collectively called 湯麵. It is not a fixed proper noun. On the other hand, fried noodles are called 麵麵.

So, tanmen is also a Japanese original product. As an aside, Nagasaki is home to many overseas Chinese from Fujian Province, and they have "champon." The greeting "Have you eaten?" is "你吃飯了嗎?", which is pronounced "Li chapongbo?" in Fujianese. It seems that a Japanese person misheard this word as "champon" and mistook it for the noodles they happened to be eating, and so "champon" came to be.

At that time, Japanese people did not have much money, so the soup noodles (Tangmen) they ate were made with a lot of cheap vegetables. At China Kitchen Hangzhou, we imagine our Tanmen as simple noodles for the common people, not special noodles. This noodle is the only one that is seasoned with salt. It is a refined soup that everyone will love, with thin noodles, various vegetables as ingredients, and seafood soup.

　Shrimp noodles (Ebi soba) : As the name suggests, this is a noodle dish with lots of shrimp as a topping. It seems that people either love or hate shrimp. This is the case for people with shellfish allergies. On the other hand, it seems that there are quite a few people who like shrimp and crab. This can be a bit confusing for chefs. Customers tend to dislike shrimp with the shell, skin, bones, or fat still attached. Celery, green onions, green peas, and onions are also disliked.

Shrimp soba contains onions, peppers, wood ear mushrooms, and shrimp. If you don't like it, there's nothing to eat.

Shrimp is an honor student that appears in all kinds of cuisines. It is an elegant ingredient that exudes a delicate and beautiful taste. Therefore, there are many seasonings that it dislikes. Soy sauce, miso, and strong flavors are also no good. Salt flavor is probably the best. Our restaurant adds a little soy sauce to the salt flavor. This is to avoid the smell of the soup and shrimp. It is not just salt. Tanmen (vegetable soba) is seasoned only with salt. There are various ways to remove the odor. It depends on the case, such as preparing it with green onions and ginger, making the soy sauce flavor stronger, or adding cooking sake or curry flavor.

There is a reason for the benefits of using a thick sauce. It makes the texture smooth and keeps the food from getting cold, but on the other hand, it also has some downsides, such as not being able to taste the crispness and not being able to bring out the original flavor of the ingredients. As people get older, it becomes harder to eat wildly like when they were younger, and they naturally tend to prefer lighter foods that fill them up. It's natural. Take care of yourself.

Fried dumplings (Potsticker, Fried dumplings) : There is no Chinese restaurant that doesn't serve dumplings and ramen. You can be sure that it is Chinese because they serve dumplings and ramen. We have three types of dumplings, but ramen is not on the menu. What kind of restaurant do customers think it is? It seems that each person has their own perception. In the first place, in China, almost 100% of the stores sell boiled dumplings, so it is difficult to find a store that sells fried dumplings. It is said that in the past, the head of the family had the boiled dumplings made and ate them, and the leftover cold boiled dumplings were re-fried and eaten by the servants. Later, Japanese soldiers before the war saw this, learned about it, and spread it throughout the country when they returned home. So boiled dumplings probably were not known at the time. Now, when you think of dumplings, Utsunomiya and Hamamatsu are famous enough to think of them. They were all probably gifts brought home by the soldiers.

For our fried gyoza, we chop up raw cabbage and mix it into minced meat. For boiled gyoza, we squeeze out boiled cabbage or cabbage and mix it into minced meat, but the cooking method is different, so whether you use raw or boiled gyoza makes a difference. Another difference is the moisture content of the vegetables. The moisture content varies considerably between summer and winter vegetables. Of course, there is also a difference in sweetness. For example, spring cabbage is watery and its leaves are not firm. As summer approaches, the leaves become harder and firmer. It requires intuition that cannot be measured by measurements alone. The amount of seasoning is adjusted taking into account moisture, sweetness, and bitterness. If you can judge this accurately, you can be sure that you will be able to make delicious gyoza.

　Red oil dumplings (spicy sesame sauce dumplings) : As the name suggests, these are spicy sesame dumplings, which are dumplings that are eaten by pouring sauce over them later. Generally, the dumplings eaten in northeastern China are normal dumplings that are eaten by pouring chili oil, vinegar, and soy sauce into a small dish.

These red oil dumplings are only found in Sichuan. The sauce is made with a unique mixture of sauce and homemade chili oil. The chili oil is also homemade, but the sauce is elaborate. The sweet soy sauce (tenjanyu) is made by simmering soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, sugar, and seven kinds of flavorings over low heat for over an hour until it is reduced by half.

This sweet soy sauce is mixed with homemade sesame paste (sesame miso paste) and chili oil to make a sauce that is then poured over the dumplings, so it should be delicious.

By the way, in Japan, gyoza is associated with fried gyoza. In ancient China, it is said that the master ate boiled gyoza, and the servants heated up the leftovers and ate them as fried gyoza.

　Harumaki ( spring rolls) : Spring rolls can also be said to be a Japanese original. This is also a rational idea. I heard that the origin of the sandwich is that people were thinking about how to eat while playing poker, and they came up with the idea of putting ham and vegetables between bread and eating them.

In China, "runbing" is common and is eaten during the Chinese New Year, so the character "spring" is used. There are roughly 10 different ingredients inside, and it is usually made by placing bean sprouts, eggs, shrimp, meat, chives, peanuts, cabbage, etc. on a thin layer of wheat flour skin called mochi, which is not fried in oil but cooked in a frying pan, then rolling it up and eating it without frying. This way, it's fun to eat around the table and everyone can eat what they like. As with Japanese gozen meals, Japan has a culture of hospitality where each person is served a side dish, but there is no culture of eating in a lively circle.

If you want to serve different ingredients equally to each person, it is more efficient to wrap the ingredients and deep fry them. Spring rolls have become so common that it might be fun to make them in different shapes and with different methods, like Vietnamese fresh spring rolls.

　燒賣 = shumai (steamed dumplings) : If gyoza are from the Tohoku region, then shumai are from the Guangdong region of Hong Kong.

I'm not sure if it's shumai or shumai. Kiyoken is the former, because it's Cantonese. Nowadays it's easier to call it a side dish.

Our restaurant even offers it as a side dish to go with your drinks. We often have customers who order gyoza rice, but no one orders shumai rice. It's not suitable for eating with rice, but it's a dim sum that should be eaten as a main dish.

Of course, I add chopped onions to bring out the sweetness. I use pork that I blend twice in the store. I choose meat that is lean. I never use store-bought minced meat because I don't know what part of the meat it is. I avoid store-bought minced meat because they add a lot of different things. I knead it with my hands until it becomes sticky. Once it's sticky enough, I add the squeezed-out onions and finish it off with just salt.

　Shaoxing wine : I'm not a heavy drinker, but by asking customers I've gradually come to understand Chinese alcohol.

Chinese alcohol can be roughly divided into distilled alcohol, brewed alcohol, and medicinal alcohol.

Shaoxing wine is a brewed alcoholic beverage also known as yellow wine. It has an alcohol content of 15 to 16 percent and is aged in a jar for 3 to 10 years. Laojiu is available all over China, but the one made in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province is called Shaoxing wine.

In the past, it was customary to make Shaoxing wine when a daughter was born and give it to her when she got married. Sake that has been aged for over 10 years seems to have a rich, full-bodied flavor and is slightly sweet.

This Shaoxing wine from a jar is called Guandi and is aged for 5 years. It is brewed directly from the jar, so it has a rich aroma and a good taste. It is also popular because you can drink more of it than aged Shaoxing wine.

Among our customers are Shaoxing wine connoisseurs, and some of them are even brave enough to taste the wine and say, "This Shaoxing wine is even more delicious than before."

　Taiwanese aged Shaoxing wine : Among the many types of Taiwanese Shaoxing wine, aged Shaoxing wine is ranked number one, and is a light, elegant and refined Shaoxing wine.

In China, Shaoxing wine is not drunk warm or with sugar.

In the past, when wine brewers presented Shaoxing wine to the emperor every year, they would accompany it with rock sugar.

The owner of the wine brewery watched this closely and realized that if the emperor added sugar to the wine, it would mean that the Shaoxing wine of that year was of poor quality. If the wine was good, it would be delicious even without adding sugar. In other words, if sugar was not added, the wine would be of poor quality and undrinkable. It seems that only the custom of adding sugar remains today from this anecdote.

If you know this story, you would know that it is rude to add rock sugar to sake without even tasting it. In China, they don't warm it up or add sugar. They drink it at room temperature.