Shenzhen tour day 3: yellow croaker for lunch

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It's our last day in Shenzhen, and for breakfast I decided to stay in the hotel room and finish the fruit I bought yesterday. I figured that I'd already consumed enough calories over the last few days and could use a break...

My Favorite Cousin wanted to take her parents to Xinrongji (新荣记), and it's much better to do this in Shenzhen compared to Hong Kong. So for second day in a row, we walked over to the Ping An Financial Center Mall (平安金融中心商场) to one of the restaurants on a high floor. The only problem was that, once again, we had to get ourselves into a private dining room with a much higher minimum spending limit. As a result I pre-ordered a couple of things last night.

A meal at Xinrongji usually starts with some seasonal fruits, and today was no exception:

These big blueberries from Yunnan were as tasty as I have come to expect.

These Indian jujubes (牛奶棗) tasted a little less sweet and, dare I say, slightly "bland" than ones I'm used to buying in Taiwan and Hong Kong. I guess these particular ones did live up to their moniker of being "milky".

A pair of crackers here... The almond cracker is a staple here, and the other cracker with spring onions delivered a nice combination of sweet and savory flavors.

Green peas with gorgon fruit (鸡头米拌小蜜豆) - I knew that My Favorite Cousin really loves these teardrop peas, and they seemed even sweeter served chilled. The foxnuts (雞頭米) were pretty nice, too.

Stewed dried tofu with pork intestines (古镇肥肠香干) - this turned out more interesting than I had expected. The pressed tofu had a texture that was pretty silky, and the scoring helped with the overall experience both in terms of texture and also by helping pickup the sauce. While I knew there would be some pig intestines, we also got chunks of pig trotters with really springy texture. Very happy with this dish.

Water bamboo with shrimp roe (虾籽拌茭白) - so apparently there are three types of water bamboo with different seasons of maturity, and this would be the June variety. The shredded water bamboo was very, very tender and refreshing, and the shrimp roe added a nice umami touch.

Brine tofu soup with stone crab and white towel gourd (石蟹丝瓜盐卤豆腐煲) - My Favorite Cousin really wanted this, and the staff here insisted that they serve the same tofu dish at all the Xinrongji restaurants. Well... the one I've had quite a few times in Hong Kong over the years is not this one exactly... although they use the same tofu that packs a ton of soy bean flavors.

The easiest way to meet the minimum spending limit here is to order a yellow croaker. I gotta say... I don't think I've seen a fish with its tongue sticking out like that!

Braised yellow croaker from the East China Sea in home style (家烧海钓东海黄鱼) - love the classic preparation here with all the very thick-cut rice cakes, and those cloves of garlic.

This was, of course, very, very, very tender. Sooo tasty. But someone was disappointed that, in the process of portioning, all the garlic got lost.

Braised Changjie razor clam with white flowered gourd (长街蛏子烧浦瓜) - these stubby razor clams from Changjie township (长街镇) in Ninghai County (宁海县) are always pretty special, and although I've had these braised with the same calabash at Xinrongji in Hong Kong, the preparation here was simpler for a cleaner flavor profile. In Hong Kong they added bamboo shoots and dried shrimp for a dish with a little more complexity.

Braised sea anemone with sweet potato noodles (沙蒜烧豆面) - first timers need to be introduced to this signature dish, because it's not everyday that you get to chomp on Nemo's home...

A very heavy-handed dish, but one that I enjoy very much. Those crunchy anemones are definitely an acquired taste.

We finished with more fruit, and this time we've got some melon that was pretty sweet.

Yes... I over-ordered again. I needed something to help digest all the food in my system, so while we waited for the driver to pick us up for our journey back to Hong Kong, I stopped by the Starbucks Reserve next to our hotel to grab a coffee. Hopefully this would be a smooth journey home...