Fishing time!
January 14, 2011 Filed under Food
By Pang Xiaoqiao
Freshwater fish – especially those from the Yangtze River and long enjoyed by southerners – is increasingly finding favor with northern diners. Beijing Today has scouted Beijing to find good restaurants that put the fresh back in freshwater fish.
Jiayu hotpot/Photo provided by Jiayu Freshwater Fish Restaurant
Jiayu Freshwater Fish – healthy fish hotpot
Jiayu is a kind of fish native to Hubei Province; it also means to serve guests your best. It’s for this latter reason that Deng Gefang, the restaurant owner, chose this name.
The restaurant combines fish and hotpot with a special double-flavor stock (58 yuan) – spicy on one side, tomato-flavored on the other. Before eating the fish, diners should sip tomato soup to whet the appetite.
The restaurant is picky when it comes to ingredients. To insure its appearance and taste, they use tomatoes from Xinjiang Province. The spicy stock includes ingredients such as pickled pepper, garlic, canola oil and blending oil. Both the spicy and tomato stocks are simmered with soup stock that has been boiled for more than eight hours with pig shoulder, hen meat, ham, green onions and ginger. The dipping sauce includes wild pepper, spiced salt, soybeans and herbal houttuyniae, a plant that helps prevent inflammation caused by spicy foods.
Another of the restaurant’s attractions is the wide variety of fish it serves. There are more than 30 kinds of fish from the upper Yangtze, some that are rare and unusual, like suckerfish (288 yuan for 500 grams), daisy fish (398 for 500 grams) and yenus fish (188 yuan for 500 grams), which are only available here in Beijing.
“Because some of these fish are seasonal, they are not always available,” said restaurant manager Chen Qifu. “Some orders need to be placed two or three days ahead of time, and we will fly in the fish.”
More than 10 types of fish are always available.
Chen also recommended swordfish (188 yuan for 500 grams) and roundnose catfish (188 yuan for 500 grams). Furthermore, he suggested eating fish with scales instead of ones without, such as eel. The former group lives closer to the water’s surface and will taste fresher, and the skin is rich in colloidal material.
Apart from hotpot, the restaurant offers fish dishes as well, such as steamed fish. Cold dishes such as preserved cherry radish (16 yuan) are welcomed for their light taste.
The house sugarcane drink (60 yuan for a pitcher) is worth trying. It is 100 percent natural without any added sugar.
The service at Jiayu Freshwater Fish is exceptional. If you come to eat hotpot, a personal waiter will stand by your table to help cook the fish from beginning to end.
Jiayu Freshwater Fish
Where: Building 9, 54 Dong San Huan Nan Lu, Chaoyang District (near Dong Jinsongqiao)
Open: 10 am – 10 pm
Tel: 8779 5955 / 5966
Cost: Average 120 yuan per person
Fish Heads & Tails On Friday
August 23, 2010 Filed under Yu Shanshan
My mother always use to tell me we were having fish on Fridays. I am not sure why, but I think it comes from the Catholic religion. However, I was brought up Methodist so that doesn’t quite make sense. Well anyway Canthy eats fish every day as our Yue Sao says it contains a lot of protein and minerals, which are good for making baby milk. The fish are always bought fresh from the market so the quality and taste is really good. Whereas when I was growing up fish on Friday often meant fish fingers, or frozen fish rather than the fresh kind. Canthy never never eats frozen food as she doesn’t think it is healthy. However, I told her that in the UK many people live on frozen food, whether it’s fish, meat vegetables or even ready-made meals. When I told our Yue Sao about this she wrinkled up her face and said “bu hao chi” (not tasty). Then proceeded to cut up the fish into heads and tails cooked and cook it fresh for breakfast.
