Food: Starting with Wonton Noodles

Zhou Yu laughed and said, "Are you trying to say that even if we don't make the dish into the shape of a yin-yang symbol, we should at least chop the sweet potato leaves into a fine soup-like consistency?"

Zhang Rong nodded and said, "Yes, after all, didn't you say this guest is quite important, Master Yu? Then we need to consider making it even more exquisite."

He genuinely cared about Zhou Yu, and he didn't believe Zhou Yu was incapable of such knife skills.

Zhou Yu: "Brother Rong, do you know the origin of the dish 'Protecting the Nation'?"

Zhang Rong: "I know, the legend is that when the young emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty was stranded in a temple in the Chaoshan region, he couldn't find anything to eat. The abbot of the temple made a vegetable soup using wild vegetables from the backyard. Later, the young emperor named this dish 'Guardian of the Nation Vegetable'."

Zhou Yu then explained, "Yes, the origin of this dish is simply a wild vegetable soup. Why make so many fuss about it? Even though the wild vegetables in the later Protectorate Cuisine were gradually changed to sweet potato leaves, its essence is still a vegetable soup."

"Sometimes old dishes need innovation, that's true, but not every dish needs innovation. Whether you cut sweet potato leaves into very fine pieces or blend them into juice using a high-speed blender, it's just forcibly changing the dish's quality from an appearance standpoint."

"But the original texture of this soup has been sacrificed, the true flavor of the original dish has been destroyed, and even the cultural significance of the 'Protecting the Nation' dish itself has been ruined. What is the point of its exquisite presentation then?"

"But," Zhang Rong wanted to say something more, but didn't know how to start.

He felt that Zhou Yu's statement was correct, but was the current popular practice wrong?

"I'm not saying we can't innovate, but the innovation I'm talking about is innovation that starts with flavor, not innovation that destroys flavor just for the sake of innovation. What do you think?"

"Furthermore," Zhou Yu added, "do those elaborately modified 'Protecting the Nation' dishes really sell well now?"

Zhang Rong: "Master Yu, I was being too attached to the facts. Indeed, everything is based on taste and sales volume. If the improvement not only loses the taste but also doesn't necessarily increase sales, then this kind of innovation is better off not being done."

After explaining to Zhang Rong, Zhou Yu heated the pan with lard.

Stir-fry the chopped sweet potato leaves briefly, then add the chopped straw mushrooms and diced ham and stir-fry together.

Then, pour in the vegetarian broth from Dinghu Shangsu, season it, and finally pour in the prepared thickening sauce.

With this, the "Protecting the Nation" dish was completed.

……

After leading Chen Mingyuan and the others into the private room, Sun Zhigang left first.

After the two sat down, Liao Boxuan called over a waiter, took out a small box of tea, and handed it to him, saying, "Could you please brew me some tea?"

The waiter nodded and took the tea set, then began to wash and brew the tea.

Chen Mingyuan asked with some surprise, "Old Liao, do you still carry tea with you? I don't think I've ever seen you brew tea much?"

Liao Boxuan smiled and said, "Since Dr. Chen said you wanted to go out for dinner, I calculated the time, and it's still morning tea time, so of course I should bring my own tea. No tea in a restaurant can compare to the tea you bring yourself."

Although the name of Lingnan's morning tea culture includes the word "morning," in reality, restaurants serve morning tea until the end of the lunch break, and some restaurants even serve it 24 hours a day.

Chen Mingyuan wasn't very interested in tea, but he picked up the dim sum menu for morning tea with great enthusiasm.

He said, "Mr. Liao, Zhou Yu's dishes probably aren't ready yet. How about we order some dim sum to tide us over? Is there anything you'd like to eat?"

Since it was still morning tea time, Chen Mingyuan couldn't resist the urge to have some dim sum. He had always longed for the various kinds of dim sum from Lingnan.

Liao Boxuan had no objection.

However, he noticed that Chen Mingyuan seemed to have the urge to order everything on the entire menu page.

He coughed twice and said, "There's a reason why people in Lingnan say 'one cup and two dishes' when drinking tea. One cup refers to one cup of tea per person, and one cup and two dishes means one cup of tea per person and two servings of snacks. Ordering too much is easy to not be able to finish. Four dishes are enough for the two of us, otherwise it would be a waste if we couldn't finish them."

Chen Mingyuan recalled what Zhou Yu had told him about the four or eight dishes that were once popular for morning tea.

While ordering, he consulted Liao Boxuan's opinion: "Shall we order a sticky rice chicken, a shrimp dumpling, a siu mai? And a char siu bao?"

After all four dim sum dishes were served, Liao Boxuan only ate one shrimp dumpling and then stopped eating. Chen Mingyuan, on the other hand, ate very happily.

Seeing that the snacks on the table didn't seem to be enough for him, Liao Boxuan couldn't help but say, "If it's not enough, how about we add two more snacks?"

Chen Mingyuan immediately called over the waiter and ordered another serving of spare ribs and another serving of chicken feet.

Infected by his good appetite, Liao Boxuan added, unusually, "Add another egg tart."

Chen Mingyuan laughed and said, "Old Liao, I thought you only liked traditional pastries and didn't like foreign pastries like egg tarts."

Liao Boxuan: "You've heard your friend talk about the traditional four or eight items for dim sum, but have you ever heard of the Four Heavenly Kings or Eight Vajras of dim sum? The Four Heavenly Kings nowadays don't include your favorite sticky rice chicken, but rather egg tarts. As long as it tastes good, who cares if it's a traditional dish or not?"

He also felt that his final statement seemed somewhat unscrupulous, so he added: "Actually, I don't reject innovative dishes nowadays. Many Cantonese dishes themselves were developed by absorbing nutrients from other cuisines. For example, the egg tart you just mentioned. Indeed, the earliest egg tart originated in Portugal, but Cantonese cuisine improved upon the Portuguese egg tart a long time ago."

"Including red rice sausage," Liao Boxuan said. "You've eaten red rice sausage, so do you think it's delicious?"

"Delicious!" Chen Mingyuan said. He suddenly regretted that he had been thinking about the traditional four dishes and the Four Heavenly Kings and Eight Vajras.

Instead, we forgot that red rice rolls are such a delicious snack.

The red rice roll has a chewy and elastic red rice skin, a crispy net-like skin in the middle, and tender and juicy shrimp meat inside.

The three different textures in one bite are very appetizing.

Moreover, the unique aroma of red rice, with its slightly nutty flavor, is a perfect match for shrimp.

Chen Mingyuan was completely won over by this snack the first time he tried red rice sausage.

However, he found it strange that red rice rolls were not mentioned in any of the classic dim sum descriptions for morning tea.

He clearly remembered that every time he went for dim sum, red rice rolls were almost a must-order at every table.

Seemingly sensing his question, Liao Boxuan asked, "Do you know what era red rice rolls originated from?"

Chen Mingyuan asked, "When?"

Liao Boxuan: "This is a Cantonese dim sum that was invented after the millennium. In fact, red rice was never used to make the dough before."

Liao Boxuan: "The tradition I like is simply the traditional dishes that taste better. Lingnan's culinary culture has never rejected foreign cuisines."