DONG HAI JIU JIA

Unlike many people who originally wrote and then turned to food, Uncle Zhong is a true master of the kitchen and can be regarded as one of the founders of modern Chaozhou cuisine. I have organized groups to taste Uncle Zhong's craftsmanship many times. Uncle Zhong's roasted conch and goose blood pot have always been the taste memory that I miss. Innovation is a hot topic nowadays, but if someone innovates, someone must protect the foundation. The taste of Uncle Zhong is the root system of Chaozhou cuisine growing tenaciously under the land. In addition to tasting delicacies on the plate in the restaurant, Uncle Zhong actually has another unique skill, which is to make all kinds of sweets and pickles by hand. People in the food circle will be a little happy to share Uncle Zhong's olive sugar square and pine nut sugar square. This delicious tea snack is made by a master of a generation, which is of great significance and tastes excellent, but the price is also not cheap. A box of olive sugar square the size of a palm costs more than 400 yuan. Uncle Zhong self-deprecatingly said: It can't sell well. This time, in addition to revisiting the steaming and bubbling goose blood pot, I also tasted a new idea of ​​Uncle Zhong, XO sauce made with Chaoshan olives. Olives have an extraordinary taste of nostalgia for Chaoshan people, otherwise why would the local TV station's integrated media be called "Olive Channel"? Olive quality is a profound local subject. Uncle Zhong spared no effort to add heavy ingredients such as ham and scallops to make a fat and mellow XO olive sauce. One more thing to say, the so-called XO sauce has nothing to do with French Cognac. At that time, Hong Kong restaurants used all kinds of high-end ingredients to make seafood meat sauce for noodles, and in order to show their good value, they were named XO. Uncle Zhong's jar of sauce is really amazing. It can be eaten with white porridge or hot soup with rice noodles. They are all Chaozhou snacks that can cultivate the mind and nourish the body. Everyone has his own way to keep himself young. Uncle Zhong said that he was known as the "Andy Lau of Shantou" back then. I looked at the photos and think that Andy Lau’s food when he was young might not have been as good as Uncle Zhong’s?

It is said that when Ms. Zhu was on her way to the restaurant by taxi, the taxi driver enthusiastically recommended to her: You must eat goose blood stew when you arrive at Shantou Donghai Restaurant! When I asked Uncle Zhong to help design the menu, I saw that there was no goose blood stew, so I shamelessly said: Uncle Zhong, can you add a goose blood stew? Uncle Zhong laughed and told the secret: I deliberately didn’t write it down, just see if you still remember it! How can you not remember it? This is simply a legendary dish. Many people said that they had never tasted such tender goose blood in their lives after eating it. But Uncle Zhong did not admit that this was the signature dish of Donghai, "If I rely on selling goose blood, how can I pay my employees?" Uncle Zhong laughed again.

Uncle Zhong is old, but his voice is as loud as a bell and his hands and feet are still nimble. This meal seems to be bathed in the golden glow of the sunset, warm and gentle. The classic goose blood pot has never failed, and the soft beef balls of the Luo School are all hand-made. Some chefs' dishes represent imagination, and every taste of Uncle Zhong carries a look back at the past. Why are there soft and hard beef balls? Why can't the soup be used for the nine-belly fish noodles? These questions may be annihilated in the future, and the enlightenment at this moment is like a firefly in the dark night, but those who are obsessed have found the meaning of themselves, and they are like dust in the light, and everything is unobstructed.

"Donghai Restaurant" is located on Changping Road, Longhu District, Shantou City, in the eastern Guangdong region. It has always been a place that combines high-end and low-end culture, and has been constantly making progress in the process of inheritance. Although I have long heard of its high-end shark fin and always reminisce about its combination of roasted and stewed dishes, what I have enjoyed recently (this year's Dragon Boat Festival) is their double-combination rice dumplings (called rice dumplings by Chaoshan people), which are extremely delicious.

We went there with two people. As soon as we entered the door, the waiter said that we eat bird's nest, abalone and shark's fin here, which makes people feel that they can't eat without wearing a formal dress. There are no scattered seats, all are private rooms. The fried rice is greasy. The duck blood pot is very tender and salty. The dishes are not bad