Weekend in Guangzhou: lunch at the river

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For someone who didn't get enough sleep the night before, I woke up much earlier than I had wanted this morning. Unfortunately it didn't seem like I would be able to go back to sleep this morning, so we got up for breakfast. While I normally would have preferred to leave the hotel and grab something local like steamed rice flour rolls (腸粉), the most popular places on Dianping (大众点评) seemed to have sanitary issues like having mysterious black spots in their food. That definitey does not work for Foursheets...

Our room at the Mandarin Oriental Guangzhou included breakfast, and we dutifuly rolled down to Tang (堂) so Foursheets could at least get some coffee. It was still before 9 a.m. so there were still empty tables.

There was a whole selection of dim sum available for us to order, so I kinda ordered up a storm. We've got the charsiubao (叉燒包)...

... the hargau (蝦餃) and siumai (燒賣) were OK.

They've got a noodle station, so I enjoyed a bowl with fish balls, fish cake, minced pork...

I don't remember ever having had a Cantonese millet cake (小米糕) before, so I ordered one out of curiosity. This was OK, but not very interesting.

After years of eating hotel breakfasts, I've somehow developed a thing for breakfast sausages and spring rolls... and always need to put some on my plate even though they're never really that interesting.

When we left the restaurant, there was already a line of people waiting to get in. We heard later that one of our friends gave up after waiting in line a while...

Foursheets and I wanted to see a little bit of Guangzhou on this trip, since neither of us have been here in a long time. While the original plan was to check out Shamian Island (沙面岛) - which I vaguely remember visiting back in 1998 - we kinda ran out of time for it considering the long commute. Instead we decided to check out the new wing of the Guangzhou Museum of Art (广州美术馆), which opened in 2023 and happens to be near Guangzhou Tower. The design is pretty modern, and somehow reminds us of Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.

How interesting that they placed a grand piano in the center of the museum and encourage anyone who plays to sit down and play for 10 minutes (or more). During our relatively short stay, we were treated to live music the entire time - from Pachelbel's Canon to Last Christmas.

We went back to the hotel to get ready for lunch with the gang. The second reason for me to visit Guangzhou this trip was to finally dine at Jiang by Chef Fei (江 - 由辉师傅主理). I've now visited the sister restaurant The Bay by Chef Fei (东湾 - 由辉师傅主理) three times now, and I finally had the chance to visit Chef Fei's flagship restaurant.

We had gone through the menu and pre-ordered a few dishes, but since we didn't get a chance to have dim sum yesterday, we decided to start with some today. After all, there was no chance of any items running out!

Steamed chicken feet, abalone sauce (鲍汁凤爪) - someone really wanted chicken feet, and I gotta say... this looked absolutely tantalizing. They were plump and really satisfying to bite into. The abalone sauce was also very pretty tasty.

'Xiao long bao' lobster soup dumplings (龙虾汤小笼包) - this steamer basket looked very pretty with the colorful xiaolongbao (小籠包)。

And they were actually very tasty! So much so that we were really tempted to order up another basket. But we decided to wait and see how we felt after we've gone through all the dishes we had ordered...

Steamed rice rolls, beef, coriander (香茜牛肉肠) - this was OK.

Pan-fried pork dumplings (金网锅贴) - these also looked very pretty. Apparently the "golden net" attached to each dumpling was made with Vietnamese spring roll wrappers.

These were also very tasty.

Baby radish marinated with Sichuan peppercorn (椒⿇樱桃小萝卜) - a dish that Foursheets and I enjoyed on our first visit to The Bay by Chef Fei 2 years ago, so we decided to introduce it to the others. Very refreshing, and love the light tingling and numbing sensation from peppercorn oil.

Chaoshan style smoked goby fish (潮式冻烟熏午笋鱼) - Foursheets and I were impressed with the "fish rice (魚飯)" we tasted at The Bay, and although they're not the only high-end Chiuchow restaurant doing it this way, I still wanted to make sure the others got a chance to taste this.

Still love it, especially that smoky flavor coming from the fermented soy bean sauce from Puning (普寧).

Poached kuixiang chicken (⽩切葵⾹鸡) - I insisted on this because it is what Foursheets wants to eat whenever we are at high-end restaurants in Guangdong. Glad I could make her happy, since she loves these chickens which have sunflower seeds in their diet.

Deep-fried crab meat with shrimp, pork and chives (香酥金钱蟹盒) - this is a dish we don't see a lot these days, so I wanted to see how Chef Fei does it.

While the exterior pork fat got crispy, the dish was generally panned by the table for being too wet and greasy inside. Meanwhile, I was a little surprised to see flying fish roe.

Wok-fried lily bulb and honey bean (素炒兰州百合甜⾖仁) - very nice. Love lily bulbs and sugar snap peas for their sweetness.

Stir-fried snow crab, bean sprout with vermicelli noodle (肥仔豆芽粉签炒松叶蟹粉) - I knew I had to pre-order this for the crab fan(s) in the group, and it was a big hit. There was a lot of crab meat, including whole sections of crab legs, plus plenty of egg. The flavors were pretty heavy-handed with lots of white pepper and MSG, but very tasty nonetheless. SOMEOME had THREE bowls of this... AHEM!

Cantonese barbecue pork pastry (怀旧叉烧酥) - this was kinda treated as "dessert" by us, and was pretty decent.

Pan-fried pancake roll, mango, peanut (香芒甜薄餐) - can't say I remember ever having this type of pancakes (薄餐) before. Here we had some matcha powder mixed into the dough, and the pancakes were pan-fried to create a browned, crispy crust. Besides mango they also added some peanuts, which is a little unusual in my book.

Honey dough fritters (蜂蜜沙琪玛) - our sachima (沙琪瑪) fan was not happy with what we had yesterday, and while these were also much too soft for her liking, they were a little better. Got some desiccated coconut sprinkled on top, too.

Sweetened red bean soup, aged orange peel (远年陈皮红豆沙) - this was very thick and creamy. Nice fragrance from the aged tangerine peel.

We finished with a plate of these kumquats (金桔), which were nice and refreshing. Just a little bit sweet, but love that clean, citrus flavor.

While browsing through the wine list at lunch yesterday, I spotted a listing from one of China's hottest wineries - offered at a very reasonable price. I decided to ask for the wine list today, and sure enough, they offered the more sought-after white wine from the same winery at a reasonable price.

2022 Muxin Chardonnay - showing lemon, a little honey, flint, and some fruity notes at first. After 20 minutes or so the nose opened up more, and the acidity also came out on the palate. We've got more toasty notes, then the body gathered weight and the wine had a grippy finish on the back of the throat. A very nicely balanced chardonnay, and pretty elegant.

OK... we definitely ordered too much food. OK, it was MY fault, for adding more items at the end. The food was certainly very delicious, and we were definitely pampered and this was a very leisurely lunch. So much so that we had to rush to check out of our rooms to head to the train station!