A Beijing hotel food festival brings the light flavors of Ningbo cuisine to foodies in the capital. Liu Zhihua stops by for a sampling.

Coastal Ningbo city in East China's Zhejiang province is famous for "Yongbang Cai" (Yongbang cuisine, as Ningbo is called Yong for short), which is one of the most widely recognized local fares in China, characterized by light flavor and freshness.

Compared with other cuisines that are also light-flavored, such as Huaiyang cuisine, Ningbo cuisine uses even fewer seasonings and always tries to bring out the best original flavors of ingredients through simple cooking.

Good news for Beijing foodies: Minzu Hotel has invited a team of chefs from the seaport city to hold a one-month Ningbo food festival that runs through Nov 16. All the ingredients are being sourced from Ningbo and flown to Beijing every morning to ensure freshness.

"Ningbo is a port city of long history. Businesspeople from all over China and abroad gather there to make money, and they shape the character of Ningbo cuisine as being exquisite, fresh and healthy," says You Xiaochun, the festival's chief chef.

"Rich businessmen have exquisite taste for what they eat," he adds.

Ningbo cuisine chefs seldom use deep-frying, so that the original flavors of ingredients will be kept, and the nutrition will not be damaged, You says.

Also, because Ningbo is close to the Zhoushan fishing area, China's largest offshore fishing ground, where high quality fish and crustaceans are bred, seafood is the essence of Ningbo fare.

The hotel food festival's menu consists of an array of signature Ningbo delicacies, and I tried some of the food last weekend.

My favorite was Ningbo yanxie, literally marinated crab.

The dish uses no seasonings except salt, and seems easy to prepare - just marinate whole sea crab that has been washed in salt water, and put the mix in a refrigerator for two to three days, then cut the crab into smaller pieces to serve.

The quality of the crab, however, is very important, and only the freshest crab can make delicious yanxie that tastes savory and freshly sweet, You says.

Another dish, called zui ni - luo, literally drunk mud snail, is equally famous in Ningbo, and canned snails prepared this way are very popular among Ningbo natives away from home, You says.

The dish is made with a crustacean called "mud snail" that is usually found in southern China. Ningbo people often marinate mud snails in Shaoxing yellow wine for about three days to eat.

The mud snails are best to eat when they are as small as a teenager's fingernail. Their crystal shells are easy to remove, and the soft meat inside is deliciously meaty while the hint of wine flavor helps cover the "muddy" taste, You says.

Another dish I liked is fried yellow-fin tuna and tofu-skin rolls, a dish made by deep-frying. The magic of the dish was that the tofu skin outside was crispy and savory, while the fish inside was tender and fresh with a slight sweetness.

The chef says the secret is in the tofu skin: He wraps deboned fish in dry tofu skin to deep fry in hot oil briefly with a few seasonings, including salt and shallot, so that the tofu skin will become crispy and block excessive heat from damaging the fish texture and taste.

Another dish I liked a lot was wine-marinated pork belly. It is first boiled and then marinated in wet distilled grains of Chinese rice wine for a day or two, resulting in a meaty, moist texture and a pleasant wine flavor.

The soup made with small yellow-fin tuna and salt-pickled vegetable was also very tasty, and I finished with the pleasing Ningbo tangyuan, a sweet dessert of rice balls stuffed with sesame and sugar.

Contact the writer at liuzhihua@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 10/23/2015 page19)