The Subtleties of Sichuan Spices: Dinner with Chef Deng
By Andrew Sun / David Lai
Slow Food Hong Kong presented a very successful event at Deng G Bistro & Baiju Bar on 13 September 2017. ‘The Subtleties of Sichuan Spices’ dinner in the company of Chef Deng Huadong was fully booked after only a week. The 30 lucky guests enjoyed an exquisite selection of dishes that showcased the range of Sichuan flavours and tastes far more diverse than the stereotypical mala-spicy burn.
Following the meal, Chef Deng gave an impassioned talk about his philosophy on cooking and answered questions about what makes Sichuan such a misunderstood cuisine.
One of the guests in attendance was David Lai. He is the chef of acclaimed restaurants Neighborhood and Fish School, as well as one of the speakers at our 2015 event Chef Talks. He offered his reflections on the gratifying evening:
“Food is about flavours, BIG flavours, not looks.” In Chef Deng I have found a like-minded fellow. It is said that Sichuan cuisine has “a hundred tastes,” and Chef Deng, who has been cooking for 40 years, surely seems to have full command of them all.
I have always wanted to understand and like Sichuan cuisine. I visited Chengdu for each of the past two years and ate out where experts recommended. My general experience, however limited, was that the food was, mostly, either gratuitously spicy or that they were pretty but bland.
For me, this meal at Deng G was nothing short of revelatory. In Chef Deng’s hands the “hundred tastes” become literal. This meal at Deng G was meant to show off the vibrant yet precise permutation of flavours, like a Pantone color chart.
To begin there was sweet soy, dark vinegar, and rich sesame. There was the perfectly balanced hot and sour soup and kung pao prawns with sweet/fragrant “lychee taste.” Wu La chicken combined the spiciness of chili and white peppers; then the classic “mala” (chili+Sichuan pepper) dish of poached Mandarin fish. The list of dishes went on and on.
From my own experience as a chef and a diner, all the best restaurants in the world that I have experienced have one thing in common—excellent ingredients and bold, vibrant, and precisely calibrated seasoning. In this light, Chef Deng’s cooking is some of the best Chinese food I have ever tried. He is for sure one of the very best chefs in China today.
