Guest post by Shelley Seale
Modern China is a melting pot of exciting fusion cuisines, where Chinese chefs and celebrated foreigners alike are creating innovative new worlds for the palate. With the increasing capitalism, foreign influx and sophisticating palate of China over the past twenty years, many chefs have been busy creating exciting new fusions of Eastern and Western food in ways that simply aren’t found anywhere else. Indulge in the epicurean discovery that is today’s Beijing dining scene at top restaurants such as Daniel Boulud’s Maison Boulud, serving French cuisine prepared with Pacific Rim ingredients in the walled compound of the former US Embassy. Or, try Ristorante Sadler, the newest offering from Italian chef Claudio Sadler in the Legation Quarter, just steps from Tiananmen Square. Jing is the city’s leading modern Chinese restaurant, located in the swanky Peninsula Hotel.
In Shanghai, renowned chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten opened his latest restaurant, Three On the Bund. “Shanghai chose me,” Vongerichten says. “China has been in my imagination and dreams; since the 1930s people here were incorporating French flavors and techniques into the traditional Chinese food, and I did the same thing in my restaurant.”
To illustrate the incredible congruence of flavors and styles found in China, Vongerichten describes how he first came here and encountered curried noodles, much to his surprise. “I said, what is curry doing in Shanghai food?” Indian and French are only two of many influences that have given modern Chinese food a unique style and taste combination that are hard to classify.
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