Da Dong's recent spring dish tasting was full of seasonal ingredients, and bright ideas. The first course, named "spring song", has shrimp with spring green tea, and tasty pear with sweet and sour hawthorn fruit in it, in addition to bean curd with Chinese toon.

After a healthy vegetable combo, a picturesque spring bamboo shoots was served on snow-white ice, with a peach branch and blossom. It has a beautiful name, too - "seeking plum blossom in snow". The icy, fresh bamboo shoots are a great match with the two sauces served: One a syrup with sweet-scented osmanthus; another is Beijingers' traditional sesame paste.

Bamboo shoot slices appeared in another dish, fried with shepherd's-purse, a favorite Chinese wild vegetable. This time the bamboo shoots tasted super soft and smooth, a comfort for the palate.

Da Dong presented his refined version of traditional Beijing snacks, such as glutinous rice cakes, mashed kidney bean roll, and mashed yellow pea cake, all of which make great sweets.

Grouper is boiled in lobster soup, while steamed Alaskan king crab with Shaoxing rice wine is perhaps the most tender and best tasting king crab in Beijing. Braised beef sirloin is soft-braised and served inside a boiled pear, giving it a fresh balance.

The palate was rinsed by a water chestnut sherbet, before sugar coated apple, a traditional Chinese dessert, and Da Dong's signature "super-lean" roast duck. In general, it was a healthy treat, enjoyable for both the eyes, and the palate.

Da Dong's Nanxincang branch. Daily 11 am-10 pm, 1-2 Nanxincang International Building, A 22 Dongsishitiao, Dongcheng district. Tel: 5169-0329

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