The chicken chest meat stewed with fish maw, for example, is a time-and-energy-consuming dish.
The most delicate part of the chicken chest meat has to be scraped off first and fat needs to be carefully removed. Then the meat is wrapped up in egg white and stewed with fish maw as thick soup.
The prices of these “old flavors”, however, are more “friendly” than the regular courses of the restaurant, which are usually priced at 50 ($7.83) to 100 yuan or above. The cheapest dish on the menu, mandarin fish meat wrapped in lotus pod, is 22 yuan, and the most expensive dish, fish and shrimp in net, is 84 yuan.
The “three delicacies of the summer pond”, or hetangsancui, made from lotus root, lotus seeds and water chestnut, offers a light and refreshing conclusion to the meal, like a mouth rinse with water from the West Lake.
The dish’s three ingredients, all seasonal and regional produce available only during summer, share a similarly crisp and crunchy texture even after being sautéed in oil. Each provides a unique lusciousness, both in taste and texture.
To add a final flavor to the meal, it will be an utterly gratifying experience to go for a stroll along the causeway, with plum trees and weeping willows on both sides.
As darkness falls, of course after dinners only, you will be fascinated by the sweeping views of the serene lake, the cool breeze blowing against your face and the giggling children running past you with a pinwheel in hand.
The only problem, if there must be, might be that when you reach the other side of the stretching embankment, you might feel hungry or a little bit tempted, again, by the strong smells from other restaurants.
