Lunch / Dinner

Taste: spicy

MaPo Tofu is one of the most representative dishes in Sichuan cuisine, even popular at South Korea and Japan. The MaPo Tofu uses brownish red ground beef and chopped green onion as the toppings, pepper pounder and douban (fermented broad bean and chili paste) and douchi (fermented black beans) as sauces, to make a hot but delicious tofu dish.

In Chinese, "Ma" means pockmarks, and "Po" means an old woman or grandma. The name of this dish comes from a folk tale that an old woman who had pockmarks on face and lived in a village of Sichuan province invented this cuisine. Since this dish has become widespread all over the country, local people have adjusted the level of hot according to their preference. Therefore, sometimes you can also find the MaPo Tofu not as hot as you would thing think.

Taste: spicy

There is lot of famous boiled dishes in Sichuan cuisine including boiled fish (boiled fish slices); water boiled sliced pork, boiled beef. Most of the dishes use slices rather than wedges or cubes because in order to keep the meat as tender as possible, and the cooking time should be limited to just several minutes. In China, this dish will ideally use grass carp and snakehead fish for main ingredients, while in America, most Chinese restaurants will use flounder filets for substitution.

Generally, boiled fish should be matched with one of several types of vegetables or mushrooms in order to get a better balance and rich the finish dish. The most traditional one is Chinese cabbage.

Taste: sweet and sour

In Chinese, "Tang" means sugar, and "Cu" vinegar. Therefore, this rib dish is full of the rich taste that is sweet and sour. This is a very famous Shanghai dish that could be both served as an cold appetizer or a hot entry dish, which depends on the size of the ribs. The ribs are lightly marinated and coated with cornstarch, then deep fried quickly to get a crispy surface without cooking through. Then the sweet and sour sauce is quickly cooked and reduced in hot oil. In the end, the ribs are added back for a quick stir fry to coat the sauce and just get them cooked through. It might sound like an easy dish, but, the actual process is quite daunting. The authentic sweet and sour pork is quite difficult to replicate.

Taste: sweet

Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes is a very common home style dish, which is very easy for cooking by hand. It tastes especially fresh with an original taste and flavor as well as high nutritional value. Only five simple steps if you want to try it by yourself:

• First, the proportion of egg to tomato should be proper - usually two eggs and 1 tomato is enough for one person.
• Second, the egg must be stirred well to make a more well-distributed taste and attractive color.
• Third, add the egg and tomato slice into the pan, stirring them all together. Enough oil should be added in this step in order to avoid sticking to the pan.
• Four, some white sugar can be added in when stir-frying the tomatoes to neutralize its sourness.
• Five, after the heat being turned off, add a little salt to make the dish more fresh and original.

The red and golden color is also an important reason why Chinese people love this dish so much. Red and golden color both represents luck and happiness in Chinese culture.

Taste: sweet

Its Chinese name is "Basi Digua" or "Basi Hongshu", in which the "Digua" and "Hongshu" both refer to sweet potato. This is a hot entry kind of like a dessert, especially popular in northern China. The key point of "Basi" is to use the heated rock candy to make a crispy and crystallized sugar coating outside the sweet potato. However, when the dish is just finished, the rock candy is still melting and thus can be drowned into the filiform. When it cools down, the sugar coating is formed. This is a process similar to making glass. In some traditional Chinese restaurants, this dish even is a challenging test for trainee chefs to prove their skills and proficiency. Ingredients such as yam, apple and banana can all be cooked with "Basi".

Taste: spicy

The tricky thing of this dish is that there is no fish nor fish sauce in the ingredients！ The "fish-flavored", which is "Yuxiang" in Chinese is actually means that the taste of this dish is as fresh as fish. The secret of its special taste is the blend of chili sauce, shallot, ginger, garlic, white sugar, and salt used during preparation – a recipe that the local Sichuan people originally used to cook fish. The pork is stir-fried with the fish seasoning, which can also be used to cook eggplant, eggs and other dishes.

There is an old folk tale about this dish: long time ago, a family lived in Sichuan they loved eating fish very much. Usually, they would cook fish with green onion, ginger, garlic, wine, vinegar and sauce to get rid of the fishy smell while enhancing the fresh taste. One night, the wife mistakenly put the leftover seasonings she had just used for cooking fish into another pork dish. When she finished, she felt worried about the flavor of the "false" dish. However, before she could have a chance to explain, her husband ate it. To her surprise, her husband praised her cooking, saying that it was delicious. Later, her recipe (especially its seasonings) were spread and favored among the people. Since the dish was created with the seasonings used for cooking fish and they do have fish flavor, people classified them as fish-flavor dish.

Taste: light salty

This soup originates from the Zhejiang province. The West Lake is the most famous natural landscape of Hangzhong, the capital city of Zhejiang province. Different from provinces like Sichuan, Hunan and other places in northern China, people in Zhejiang province prefer light but fresh taste. In their traditional dishes, there is not too many salt or oil. Take this west lake beef soup for example, it tastes not only rich in the beef smell, but also mellow, fresh, and smooth in the mixed ingredients. And its attractive color in the combination of white and green, which implied a meaning of purity and nature, just as the beauty of west lake. Generally, in Chinese cuisines, soup is served after the the main meal. Therefore, after eating too much salty or spicy dishes, this soup would be a fantastic choice for you to have you stomach relax.