Country Kitchen's old-world charm

From traditional Chinese rural snacks to the 'lost recipes' of Beijing, you will find it all at the luxury restaurant.

Handmade Chinese noodles, a variety of dumplings and other traditional countryside Chinese snacks are items that you'd least expect to be served at top-end luxury hotels.

But Rosewood Beijing will surprise you with its Country Kitchen, where the best of Beijing cuisine and an exquisite range of specialties from northern China are found, including some "lost recipes" of old Beijing.

The restaurant's main appeal lies in the large variety of local cuisines it offers along with a simple yet stylish ambiance.

On a recent visit, I was impressed by the lively open "show" kitchen at the center, where chefs were busy manipulating their skills to produce hand-cut, pulled, knife-cut or rolled noodles; and some dumplings.

The dining space is fashioned after the typical rustic Chinese style with furniture in pale brick color and in rich wood and terracotta finish. There are many oil paintings too. Other highlights of the place are a wood-fire oven for Peking duck roasts and a modern bar.

Chai Xin, chief chef of Country Kitchen and a Beijing native, says that roasted and crispy pork in wood-fire oven were very popular with wealthy people in Beijing before the 1950s. However, most of the recipes got lost and have not been cooked since.

"We resurrected the classic crispy, tender pork belly cooked over fruit wood, which gives a special subtle fragrance. The meat is roasted for some three hours after being marinated with a dozen spices," Chai says.

Small plates involve China's different regional specialties including those from Beijing, Sichuan and northeastern China. I tried the fern- root noodles with spiced beef shank and mustard sauce, a savory and healthy cold noodles dish to start my meal.

Fern-root noodles, made from bracken starch, is a classic Sichuan cuisine. The dish adds Beijing-style seasoned beef with soy sauce on top of the noodles, making it a tricky combination among different Chinese cuisines.

Spiced black chicken feet are to my liking.

Boneless and thrown into a mix of pickled chili for more than 10 hours, the meat is just the right flavor: chewy, salty and spicy. But if chicken feet don't tempt you, try the chilled jellyfish with chili oil or the Beijing salad. The two appetizers are both a little sweet and sour, reflecting the taste of many Beijing dishes.

Handmade noodles are tops here.

The knife-cut Shaanxi flat variety with braised beef brisket and handmade Bejjing-style noodles are hot tickets. The open kitchen allows diners to interact with resident noodle-making chefs who make noodles in front of you right, and right from the start. Pliable, chewy and smooth noodles with sauces such as eggplant, mushroom and tomato are worth trying at Country Kitchen.

For soups, don't miss the black- chicken soup with yam. The soup is refreshing with a mild sweetness. According to Chai, black chickens are sourced from local farms in Shunyi in northeastern Beijing, which highlights Rosewood's "Partners in Provenance" culinary philosophy.

Chefs are committed to working closely with local farmers and producers who deliver the finest homegrown ingredients to the hotel's kitchens.

This bounty includes everything from fresh eggs from Shungyi Farm, to premium poultry, meats and vegetables from Ronking Farm and even local-made French-style goat cheese, produced by Le Fromager de Pekin, he says.

Among all the dishes I tried, my favorite was fried prawns with tomato sauce. Before I went to Country Kitchen, I had heard a lot of compliments for that dish being paid by Beijing's media foodies, and as I discovered to my delight, it wasn't hype. The prawns were indeed delicious, even if they were served with their shells on them. Since the prawns were deep-fried, the shells turned crunchy and tasted yummy with the accompanying sweet-and-sour seasoning.

Fried prawn is a typical dish of eastern China's Shandong province. Prawns are deep-fried in very hot oil and then put aside to draw out the oil. They are then quick-fried in a new wok preheated with oil and seasonings, and prepared tomato sauce.

Desserts at Country Kitchen blaze new trails in combining local Chinese flavors with Western style.

The crispy peanut pancake topped onto a silky banana ice cream made a good pairing. You could try the rice wine-stewed fruits paired with Soy-milk ice cream and discover the fun of fusion desert. Hawthorn fruit jelly, almond tofu and the Beijing snack lvdagunr (glutinous rice roll with sweet bean flour), are among the Traditional Chinese desserts you will find here.

If you just want to have a quick lunch before heading back to work or want to take away, try the Country Lunch sets, which offer four different set menus to choose from, in the themes of oven-braised main course (130 yuan, $18.43), dumplings (110 yuan), noodles (110 yuan), or wok-seared dishes (130 yuan).

dongfangyu@chinadaily.com.cn