How can you spot the latest food trend in restaurant-rich Beijing? One way is to take a look at who owns the fashionable restaurants. Ever since one of China’s hottest contemporary artists launched South Silk Road, the food of Yunnan province has become the meal of the moment.
Bordered by Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, Yunnan is home to about 25 different ethnic groups, which helps to explain the richness and variety of its cuisine. Peppery tastes come from the north; fresh vegetables and exotic herbs come from the south. The minority people, such as the Bai and the Dai, contribute not only their own recipes, but also the distinctive casserole pots and bamboo tubes to cook them in.
Super-successful painter Fang Lijun, a pioneer in China’s “cynical realism” art movement, has six restaurants, the most ambitious of which is South Silk Road in the central business district. Located on the third floor of a modern office building, it is a loft-like, industrial space with art books in the nooks and contemporary Chinese paintings on the walls (by Fang Lijun’s friends, I was told).
Welcomed by three young ladies in traditional Bai red and white dresses, my husband and I were shown to the upper floor, where the tables and the floor are glass – so you can see what is being prepared in the open kitchen or eaten at the tables below.
We were offered tiny cups of cold pu’er tea – Yunnan has been brewing cha for 2,000 years. The drink was soothingly earthy, but not enough to get us through the 36-page English-Chinese-picture menu. Four pages were devoted to mushrooms, a Yunnan specialty and a pricey one: the fanciest fungi cost 168 renmimbi (£12). The braised tea mushrooms with pork, at 46 renimbi (£3), was among the cheapest varieties. It came sizzling in a cast-iron brazier; the long-stemmed, tiny-capped fungi, thin slices of pork and red chillies went perfectly with the (mercifully cold) local Yanjing-brand beer.
We passed up the bee pupae and hog face on the menu, focusing on less exotic fare. One winner was tea-marinated shrimp over thin strands of fried potatoes served with the hot puffy cheese that is typical of Yunnan. Since peeling the shrimp was difficult and took away much of the intense tea flavour, I ate the crunchy shell and all.
We also sampled perhaps Yunnan’s most famous dish, “crossing the bridge” noodles. As the story goes, a scholar in southern Yunnan secluded himself on an island to prepare for the imperial exams. His wife “crossed the bridge” every day to bring him soup for lunch. To keep it hot — so the distracted student could eat whenever he remembered to – she put a thin film of oil on top of the soup. Legend claims he passed the exams, but it doesn’t say who improved the dish by adding slices of fish, ham, vegetables, herbs and, rice noodles. At South Silk Road, as at most Yunnan restaurants, the broth is brought to the table, where the raw ingredients are added and cooked before being served. The fairly bland result was pleasant, but to my less scholarly mind, not worth crossing the street for.
An outright disappointment was the Yunnan ham, egg and bean curd. There was no trace of the world-famous dry-cured ham. Maybe I should have ordered the hog’s face instead.
South Silk Road, Building D, Soho New Town, 88 Jianguo Lu Chaoyang District, Beijing, tel: +86 (10) 8580 4286
For more reviews in the series, visit www.ft.com/arts/food
