Silks Palace and Grand Formosa Regent Taipei’s Silks House Present a Wondrous Blend of Traditional and Innovative Sichuan and Hunan Cuisine
For those who often travel between Chinese countries and have an interest in Chinese cuisine, it is clear that beyond Cantonese style cuisine and that from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Sichuan and Hunan cuisine are becoming more and more popular. And with Grand Formosa being such a driving force in the food and beverage industry, from May 3rd until May 31st, Grand Formosa’s 3rd floor restaurant Silks House in cooperation with Silks Palace located at the National Palace Museum, presents a Sichuan-Hunan Medley, where you can taste traditional cuisine carefully prepared using local ingredients and flavors. So with over 30 new dishes including appetizers, spicy hot dishes, big banquet dishes and steaming soups, revel in a whole new Chinese cuisine experience that is all the rage. (single dish begins from NT$120).
In recent years, Sichuan-Hunan cuisine has become more and more popular, with its demand rising higher than other well-known Chinese cuisine. A food critic before even personified Sichuan-Hunan cuisine, describing it as a famous artist whose technique and work was brimming with cultural elements. So this time around, Grand Formosa has taken its Chinese cuisine chefs and team to travel Chengdu, Changsha, Ningbo, Shanghai and Beijing to find the best cuisine, with 2 of the most popular Sichuan-Hunan restaurants found in Chengdu. Known as Shu Cui Dian Zang and Shang Xi respectively, the Grand Formosa team consulted with local chefs in order to bring authentic Sichuan-Hunan cuisine to Taiwan so locals here may experience this delicious cuisine and see what all the talk is about.
Sichuan-Hunan Cuisine’s New Style
As one of China’s 8 major cuisines, Sichuan cuisine in relation to China’s food culture holds an important position. The ingredients used are numerous, the flavors endless, the dish types abundant, and the spiciness while maintaining great taste, make Sichuan cuisine so well known. Additionally, it has a distinct cooking method and localized flavor, lending to its reputation as the “Three Gorges of China” and a “dazzling pearl in the history of Chinese cuisine.” Hunan cuisine has a history that goes even further back, with beginnings that go back thousands of years and has changed and evolved along with its people, slowly becoming a prestigious type of local cuisine. With an emphasis on the quality and beauty of the dishes juxtaposed against the harmonious and complementary relation between ingredients, sour and spicy are Hunan cuisine trademarks. But changes occurred in these cuisines as the demands of customers began to change, leading to the emergence of a new school of Sichuan-Hunan cuisine. The new school takes traditional dishes and blends them with new elements, cooking methods, ingredients, and flavors, to produce a whole new Sichuan-Hunan cuisine style.
Traditional Sichuan-Hunan Cuisine was meticulous with its use of ingredients, requiring complicated cooking methods, with the whole process being extremely rigorous and time consuming to ensure a flavor overload. Typical dishes included twice cooked pork, beef with tendon, mapo tofu, dry mandarin fish, shredded pork with fish, chicken, gongbao sliced chicken, and more,. The new Sichuan-Hunan dishes focus on new techniques and ingredients to reinvent classics and even create new dishes all together by blending Sichuan cuisine with other cuisine for a new taste experience. For example, the whole new bamboo and liver paste soup replaces the traditional chicken liver recipe with French goose liver so the classic cooking methods are retained but the flavor and texture is altered to heighten this traditional recipe’s quality and overall taste experience.
Shu Cui Dian Zang and Shang Xi Restaurant
This time around, Grand Formosa’s culinary team spent half a month in Chin, trying various restaurants to find the best Sichuan-Hunan restaurants. In Chengdu, they came upon a restaurant called Shu Cui Dian Zang and Shang Xi, where the team found unique Sichuan-Hunan dishes. These restaurants did offer traditional classics but also added new elements that enhanced the overall taste, quality, appearance and texture of the dishes. The culinary team expressed that the above mentioned restaurants were like handiwork that required much skill, time, and effort; so regardless if looking at the quality of the dish or its appearance, it is comparable to the beauty found in Cantonese dishes, thus increasing its level of sophistication and development. Director of Silks Palace also commented that the two restaurants trace back to the origins of true Sichuan-Hunan cuisine and bring it back to life in the modern world using exquisite cooking techniques that are most pleasant to the eye. Silks Palace and Silks House this time bring the wonders of these two restaurants to Taiwan and from today forward, will continue this cultural exchange by inviting each restaurant’s chef to Taiwan to share even more of their food culture with those of us in Taiwan.
During the Sichuan-Hunan Medley, Grand Formosa’s chefs have combined Taiwan’s freshest ingredients with the flavors and recipes from Chengdu, Changsha and Ningbo’s most popular restaurants specializing in Sichuan-Hunan cuisine. With mouth-watering appetizers, satiating main dishes, and irresistible soups, ready yourself for a feast second to none.
All Prices are subjected to a 10% service charge. For reservations, please call: (02)2523-8000 ext. Silks House， or (02)2882-9393 Silks Palace
