Cantonese restaurant Phoenix House offers authentic Hong Kong dim sum and hotpot to foodies in Beijing and Shanghai. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Chef Tam Tak-chuen has spent decades perfecting the art of creating authentic Cantonese dishes and handmade dim sum delicacies, Li Yingxue reports.
Hong Kong chef Tam Takchuen's culinary journey began back in the 1970s, when he spent a summer selling dim sum out of a basket to hungry diners at a neighborhood restaurant.
The basket was later strapped to his back to free up Tam's hands to serve diners.
"It was traditional to sell dim sum that way, and some restaurants in Hong Kong and Guangdong province still wheel a cart loaded with food around their dining halls," says Tam.
After the summer job, Tam was chosen by the restaurant's head chef to become an apprentice-and since his very first day in the kitchen until now, Tam has devoted more than four decades of his working life to the art of making dim sum.
His skill for creating traditional dim sum has now been passed on to Phoenix House, a restaurant chain in Beijing and Shanghai.
The founders of Phoenix House all hail from Hong Kong. Twenty years ago, they opened a Cantonese restaurant, Xin Wang, in Shanghai, an authentic old-style Hong Kong cafe which recreates the memory of the city during its heyday.
The founding of Phoenix House offers diners another two calling cards of Hong Kong's gourmet scene-dim sum and hotpot.
From the shining neon signs to the retro screens and large Chinese character of xi (double happiness) hanging on its red walls, the decor of the restaurant is a kind of time machine that transports diners back to the 1970s-as does the food.
"To design the dim sum menu for Phoenix House, I studied several traditional dim sum recipes that are rarely found in Hong Kong now, and taught my apprentice to make them step by step," says Tam.
One such example is tied duck feet with abalone sauce, a dish that could be found in high-end restaurants in Hong Kong during the 1950s and'60s.
"It's a legendary snack in Hong Kong. It uses two layers of tofu skin to wrap the duck feet, which are marinated in a special sauce together with shrimp, meat filling and fried taro, before the abalone sauce is poured over it ahead of steaming," says Tam.
The 58-year-old chef believes every dim sum dish requires meticulous and careful preparation, and no machine or assembly line could ever replicate his handmade flavors.
According to Tam, there are several kinds of chefs in the dim sum kitchen-one takes charge of panfrying while another handles the dough-and the skill of each position requires a chef with years of experience. In fact, it has taken Tam decades to master all the steps.
Tam Tak-chuen has designed the dim sum menu for Phoenix House. [Photo provided to China Daily]
"Even though the dim sum in Hong Kong and Guangdong province look similar, their tastes and specific cooking methods are quite different. The dim sum dishes in Hong Kong are a bit smaller than the ones in Guangdong," says Tam, who aims to bring authentic Hong Kong dim sum to the world.
He moved to Beijing in 1992 and worked for several newly-opened five-star hotels until 2000, and even prepared dim sum for a state banquet at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.
Tam then worked in several Asian countries, including Japan and Singapore, and also Australia, as a dim sum chef while learning more about local delicacies along the way.
"The culinary industry needs chefs to be constantly creative, yet we need to maintain traditions at the same time," he says.
Tam added steamed rice cake to the Phoenix House menu, a snack that originates from Shunde in Guangdong province, which is easy to make yet difficult to perfect.
The key to making the rice cake is the fermentation period-getting the temperature and timing right are essential. According to Tam, as the humidity levels between Beijing and Hong Kong differ greatly, the fermentation time has to be adjusted accordingly.
"The perfect ones have a gap in the middle of the cake. Without it, the texture won't be the best," says Tam, "I ask my apprentice to ensure each rice cake we serve has that gap."
Cantonese-style hotpot is another signature dish at Phoenix House, which takes its chefs several hours to prepare.
The chefs begin preparing the soup base of stewed chicken with fish maw around midnight using a soup pot which holds up to 50 kilograms of liquid. They measure out 11 ingredients in proportion before adding around 13.5 kilograms of chicken to the mix. The soup then has to be boiled on a high heat for four hours, then turned down to a medium heat for two hours, before being turned back up to a high heat for another two hours and stirred constantly.
Steamed chicken is one dish best enjoyed with the soup. Each hen is around 100 to 120 days old and weighs around 1.1 to 1.4 kilograms and is killed the same day it's cooked.
When an order comes in, the chefs start steaming the chicken, and seven minutes later, the chicken will be on the table, just next to the soup-the thick soup and the juicy chicken are a good pair for the winter time.
A flaming lobster hotpot has been newly added to the menu, which combines a flavorful soup with an eye-catching show-the chefs will fry the lobster in front of the diners and add flaming baijiu (white spirit). After the fire dies out, the chef adds corn, carrots and mussels to the lobster soup before pouring it all into the pot.
Phoenix House has also recently given dim sum a modern twist in the hotpot. Instead of steaming, some traditional dim sum favorites such as the steamed buns and shrimp dumplings have been prepared so they too can be boiled in the hotpot-it just takes four or five minutes.
