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Opened in 2009, the Qing Yun Lou Shandong cuisine restaurant has long been considered Beijing's guardian of Shandong, or Lu, cuisine among foodies who share love for the one of the earliest formed culinary arts in China.
Located on the east bank of Shichahai Lake, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Beijing, the restaurant's owners claim a legacy dating back to the original Qing Yun Lou restaurant built on the site in the early 19th century.
The new eatery follows recipes rummaged from historical documentation to bring out the authentic Lu culinary flavors, according to co-owner Wang Jing.
The ancestral restaurant was the former employer and trainer of chefs who built the brand image of the most famous Shandong cuisine restaurants in Beijing during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and some of the brands live on, says Beijing native Wang.
"We are successful with the Vietnamese restaurant Nuage, but feel it necessary to restore old Beijing's Lu flavor on this historic site," Wang explains.
The Lu cuisine restaurant is on the first floor of the lakeside building, and its carved windows boast views of the ancient hutong neighborhood and the lake.
Beijing's imperial era is closely related to Lu cuisine, because chefs from the province were the first to come to Beijing to serve Chinese emperors. The creation of many classics are associated with royal family members, especially the Empress Dowager Cixi, says chief chef Yu Peng, a culinary master who has previously consulted for the Palace Museum.
Yu has been in the profession for about two decades, and says, the charm of Lu delicacies lies in a wide range of ingredients, rich flavors, good nutrition and attractive presentation.
One signature Lu dish is sliced perch with rice-wine sauce, which was also my own favorite during the visit.
Big, rhombus-shaped slices of white perch were submerged in a luscious light-brown sauce, radiating a pleasantly sweet fragrance of rice wine. The fish slices were slippery and soft, silky in texture and quite easy to break into smaller pieces with chopsticks. As the sweetness lingered in my mouth, I couldn't stop reaching for more, especially because the fish had been deboned as much as possible.
The restaurant follows an ancient recipe to bring out the best of the dish, chef Yu says. The rice wine used must be more than 20 years old, to easily cover any fishy smell. He mixes the wine with osmanthus, date paste, dried apricots, salt, and fresh distiller's grains, and then slightly heats the mixture to fuse the aromas and flavors.
He then wraps the mixture in a cloth bag, and hangs the bag to a roof beam, to filter and collect the puree - which is then used to fry the deboned fish slices pre-soaked in egg white to tenderize them and make them glaze, Yu adds.
I also liked the deep-fried meatballs, which exemplify how Shandong culinary art goes into every detail. Each golden meatball was a little bigger than a cherry, and the flavor had got into every bite of the crisp coating and tender meat. Even when the meatballs became cold, the outer texture remained crispy and the flavor fresh and not musky.
Yu says the meat seasoned with various traditional Chinese flavorings, including ginger juice and miso, must have appropriate portion of fat and lean meat, so that the meatballs won't become too soft or hard, and will shape well.
The hot oil needs to be of steady temperature to deep fry the meatballs, because otherwise, the texture of the delicacy will not be attractively brittle and firm, or consistent, Yu says.
"It is not easy to cling to old meticulous ways, while others are hurry to make quick money," Yu says.
Perhaps as a reward for such patience, next month the restaurant will officially announce its authentication as a time-honored Beijing brand by the Beijing Traditional Brands Association. The brand list also includes Quanjude, the respected old-Beijing brand famous for Peking roast duck.
