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The night was uneventful, at least in the safety of my room at the
Four Seasons Hotel Hangzhou at Hangzhou Centre. There were a few more cars on the road this morning compared to last night, but the city is pretty much shut down since 6 a.m. I was so, sooo full from last night and was in no condition to have breakfast. However, since the hotel left me a bowl of
jasmine and lime water chestnut purée (茉莉花柠香马蹄沙) in the room last night, I decided I should give it a try. I love any water chestnut dessert, and this bowl also had the added fragrance of both lime and jasmine. Very nice.
Lunch today was undoubtedly the highlight of our trip. In fact, it was the reason why I joined this little excursion. I had missed out on visiting
Ru Yuan (如院) with DaRC two years ago, and it's been an itch I really wanted to scratch. I'd been waiting to bite into the restaurant's signature fishball since then. Now it was finally my chance.
The restaurant occupies a multi-story structure inside the
Hangzhou Botanical Garden (杭州植物园), and is actually a short walk away from the
Four Seasons Hotel Hangzhou at West Lake. One can immerse oneself in the tranquility and serenity of the place.
We were in the private room at one corner of the floor, and as the weather was actually not terrible today, and we got great views of the surrounding greenery.
It is any surprise that the menu occupied the entire page? Someone remarked that they saw their friend's menu from a recent visit, and it looked at least 1/3 shorter...
We were shown some of the preserved and fermented ingredients used by the restaurant, which included fermented soy beans (豆瓣), pickled leafy mustard (酸菜), dried bamboo shoots (筍乾), preserved leafy mustard (梅乾菜), preserved radish greens (菜脯頭), fermented red bean curd (南乳汁), quail eggs (鵪鶉蛋), and preserved radish (菜脯) from Xiaoshan (蕭山).
Longjing tea with jasmine (茉莉龙井) - we are, after all, in Longjing country.
Lotus root filled with glutinous rice, honey syrup dressing and osmanthus (桂花西湖藕韵) - I had just gotten off the phone with the Parental Units this morning, and I was asked whether I have had lotus root stuffed with glutinous rice here in Hangzhou. I told them that we wouldn’t be served something so banal in fine dining restaurants here, but now I get to stick my foot in my mouth... Of course, This was a modified version, where the chunk of lotus root came sandwiched between two thin, deep-fried slices. I loved this so much I had a few pieces... especially when everyone else was saving for stomach space for all the other stuff coming our way. Beautiful presentation and fragrance thanks to the sprinkle of osmanthus flowers.
Sliced Qingliang Peak dried stone bamboo shoots (清凉峰石笋干) - apparently Chef Fu has gotten the rights to harvest all the bamboo shoots sprouting on one of the peaks at Qingliang Peak (清凉峰), so he could control the process for turning them into the dry product. These consisted of only the most tender tip of the shoots.
Drunk white shrimp with Maotai and red fermented bean curd sauce (南乳汁炝醉白虾) - marinated in Maotai (茅台) and served with a sauce made of red fermented bean curd (南乳汁).
Also seasoned with Sichuan peppercorns and chili for that spicy kick.
Marinated fresh two head abalone with spicy soy sauce (酱卤大连两头鲍) - the fresh abalone from Dalian (大连) were “two-head (兩頭)” – meaning they weighed half a catty (斤) each. Marinated in the classic sauce used for Hangzhou's air-dried braised duck (醬鴨), and air-dried just like how the duck is prepared. No surprise, then, that the seasoning was very heavy-handed and salty to me.
Marinated mud crab in rice wine (香雪酒醉黄格蟹) - the mud crab comes from Haiyan County (海盐县) in Jiaxing City (嘉兴市), and they were chosen due to their relatively thin shells and rich roe. Marinated in a type of Shaoxing wine (紹興酒) known as Xiangxue wine (香雪酒), which has higher alcohol content as well as more residual sugar.
Mariated sunflower seed-fed chicken in rice wine lees (瓦罐干糟葵香鸡) - these chickens fed with sunflower seeds are always tasty, and this was nice with fermented wine flavors thanks to the wine lees.
Crispy stinky tofu with preserved egg yolk and caviar (脆皮豆腐溏心皮蛋) - sooo... once again we were presented with a stinky dish that is characteristic of this region. Today it's stinky tofu (臭豆腐), and thankfully it was the deep-fried variety as it's less stinky. These came topped with a little caviar from Lake Qiandao (千岛湖) and a small dab of chili sauce.
Biting down, we see the century egg (皮蛋) that Chef Fu has stuffed inside. This was definitely pretty smelly, but I managed to take it in. The flavors here were pretty complex.
Beihai clams with Xixi Wet Land lotus seeds (北海文贝西溪莲子) - the clams from Beihai Bay (北海湾) in Guangxi Province (广西省) came with lotus seeds handpicked each morning from Xixi Wet Land (西溪湿地) not far from here. The seeds were very fresh and sweet.
Steamed dumpling with carrot, black fungus, egg, celery and bean seedling (如院四喜饺) - very colorful with the four happiness, each in its own compartment.
I guess there are actually
five happiness because the pea shoots (豆苗) are at the bottom.
Double boiled chicken soup with silken yellow croaker and pickled greens (酸汤芙蓉鱼豆花) - this... was FISH. Chef Fu drew inspiration from the Hangzhou classic
furong fish (芙蓉魚片) and turned yellow croaker (黃魚) into a silken
tofufa (豆腐花) texture. Served in a soup made with pickled vegetables, and the acidity was obvious along with white pepper. The soup was definitely sour, and we've got lots of finely-diced Chinese celery (唐芹) which provided a nice textural contrast.
Just look at how fluffy, airy, and jiggly this was!!! Gotta say I had a lot of fun eating this.
Chaoshan High Fragrance Phoenix Oolong (蜜兰香单丛) - absolutely no surprise that this was a stronger tea, but it wasn't too much and pretty nice.
Wok-fried geoduck clam with Xiaoshan dried radish, peanuts and spring onion (萧山萝卜干炒象拔蚌) - the geoduck was nice and springy, and the preserved radish from Xiaoshan was very crunchy. We've also got very finely diced spring onions and crunchy peanuts.
Chef Fu brought out the fish for our next course...
Steamed topmouth fulter with yellow chilli sauce (黄贡椒蒸富春翘嘴鱼) - the topmouth culter (翹嘴鮊) was reasonably big, and the bones had already been removed.
I don't have a high tolerance for spicy heat, and these yellow chilis (黄貢椒) from Lake Qiandao (千島湖) were definitely packing some! But more than just heat, I actually enjoyed the fragrance a lot... so I grit my teeth and powered through as I ignored my burning tongue.
We were shown these eggs from geese living along the shore, that had been buried in dirt for more than 45 days to ferment.
Steamed swimming crab with homemade fermented egg sauce (杭州糟蛋蒸梭子蟹) - we see two swimmer crab carapace on top.
We had both chunks of swimmer crab meat as well as roe from red-clawed crab (蟛蜞) sitting on top of steamed egg.
The crab meat was sweet, and the steamed egg tasted of wine, even though no wine was used to steam them.
Next up was a plate whose contents looked like a pile of black ash...
Baked eel with preserved vegetables (干菜酥焗溪鳗) - the freshwater eel from Qiantang River (钱塘江) was served in very big chunks, and the flesh was soft and tender. These were buried in a mountain of caramelized preserved leafy mustard (梅乾菜), which had been aged for more than a year. Loved the shredded veg because the caramelized sugar worked so well with the umami of the veg.
We had
rice wine lees sorbet (酒酿雪葩) as our palate-cleanser. Pretty nice with some shavings of lime zest.
20-year raw Puer tea from Yiwu Mountains (易武二十年生普洱)
Hangzhou style stir-fried noodles with kidney and abalone (杭州腰花拌川) - this is a type of local noodle that's halfway between stir-fried and tossed.
Besides the usual spring onions, shallots...etc. we also had slices of abalone and pig's kidneys.
Next up we saw jars filled with river shrimp with those long armed claws, soaking in broth.
The broth was poured into a bowl with sections of fried
youtiao (油條). As it turns out the broth was made with aged preserved radish, and the flavors brought back childhood memories of grandma's savory
tofufa in a simple, diluted soy sauce broth.
Stir-fried water calptrop with lotus seeds (江南水菱莲子) - it had been years since I last tasted water calptrop (菱角), and they were so sweet and crunchy. Of course, the lotus seeds in prime season were also really sweet and crunchy, as was the celtuce stem. Loved that this came in a light chicken broth along with some chanterelles.
I was unaware that there had been fierce debate among Chinese netizens about one of the classic dishes of Hangzhou, and since this came up in conversation earlier in our meal, Chef Fu very kindly added it to our menu on the fly...
Poached grass carp with sweet vinegar sauce (西湖醋鱼) - this is, apparently, the 75th version of the dish from Chef Fu. He chose to source the fish - notorious for often carrying strong, muddy flavors - from Quzhou City (衢州市) due to the purity of the water. The bones of the fish are carefully removed, and displayed in a case next to the fish.
With this much black vinegar in the sauce and a sprinkle of diced ginger, I certainly didn't taste any muddy flavors. Certainly a flavor profile I'm very, very familiar with.
The fish was paired with some Huadiao wine that was a blend of
20-year Song Guan (二十年宋观) and a 30-year Huadiao. This was floral, yummy, nice and savory, and very soft and alluring.
At some point I mentioned that I had never in my life tasted a plate of
stir-fried river shrimp with Longjing tea leaves (龍井蝦仁) where I actually tasted the tea. I know the science behind this, so I wondered why this was such a popular dish beloved by many. Chef Fu did explain that the flavor of the tea must come from the tea oil being added to the dish during cooking, and not the tea leaves that are cooked together. Unfornately he could not serve this to us today, as they had not prepared any tea oil in advance. I guess I'll need to come back for it.
Stir-fried greens with cured pork (腊肉炒甜葱) - love to have the sweetness of greens to balance the salt of cured meat.
When the custom steamer arrived, it was pretty obvious that we were about to enjoy one of the restaurant's signature items.
Steamed soup dumpling filled with loofah essence (翡翠丝瓜汤包) - they have now created different versions of this soup dumpling for each of the four seasons. In summertime, loofah is in season so that becomes one of the main ingredients.
This is just a pretty amazing experience carefully lifting up the dumpling to place it on a plate, making sure it's well-positioned for consumption. One is meant to bite a small opening on the edge of the dumpling, before slowly and carefully applying suction to extract the liquid inside.
So all the ingredients were cooked together in a pot - which includes fatty pork belly - and the resulting liquid is strained and then chilled to a block of jelly. It is then very finely diced and stuffed into the thin and delicate wrapper where, upon steaming, it changes back into liquid form. This was... JUST BEAUTIFUL! I LOVE loofah, and this was the best soup dumpling I have ever had. And believe me, I've had me a few thousand.
Osmanthus black tea (桂花红茶)
XianJu Dongkui waxberry sorbet (仙居杨梅血芭) - the Dongkui (东魁) waxberries (楊梅, a.k.a. bayberries) from Xianju County (仙居县) were made into a sorbet, served with the pith of passion fruit which had been marinated in waxberry juice.
The waxberries were marinated in 五粮烧酒... and we got a small sip.
Passion fruit - not sour like the ones I dislike.
It's someone's birthday so the restaurant gave us cake...
I chose this character.
Diancha (点茶) - the original whipped tea from the Song Dynasty (宋朝) that was later imported into Japan, and became the way matcha is served. The character on the foam was matched to the one on my cake.
2025 Jinyu Yunlai Petit Manseng Vastira - flinty and mineral on the nose. Acidity was nice and high, but there was some ripeness on the front palate. Lovely lemon notes.
After lunch, we were offered a tour of the botanical gardens on buggy...
This was a really beautiful and tranquil place. I wish we could have stayed longer...
This has, honestly, been a real fantastic meal. Chef Fu has been such a pillar of Hangzhou cuisine, who happens to be the creator behind the modern version of braised pork belly shaped like a
pyramid pagoda - something he put on the menu at
Hubin 28 (湖滨 28) and made iconic. Sadly, I have never had the pleasure of tasting it, and neither have I had the chance to taste the fish ball with peas that is synonymous with the restaurant. I guess I'll have to make a return visit soon, with Foursheets by my side.
Many thanks to Chef Fu and the entire Ru Yuan team for pampering us. I'm very grateful for the amazing hospitality and treat, especially on a difficult day like today. I'm already trying to plan a return trip to continue my education in Hangzhou cuisine...
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