Hunan Chef's Tasting Menu - Oct 18, 08 [Fresno]

[PolarBear]

Local and SF Bay area hounds got together for another feast prepared by Chef Liu last Saturday night. We shared a total of thirteen dishes and I'm not sure how many bottles of wine. Melanie Wong worked out the menu with Chef Liu, and his staff of Kathy, Sun, Monica, and another fellow whose name escapes me choreographed everything wonderfully. As organizers Melanie and I will reserve comments until others have chimed in, hopefully Melanie will add her photos asap. The local paper will feature the dinner in the food section this Wednesday, since Joan Obra was one of our guests.

The Menu:

Appetizer (cold plates)

Duck Web with Mustard Sauce
Bamboo Shoots in Shaoxing Wine
Chinese Spiced Pork Shoulder (Sichuan style)
Coral Napa Cabbage
Golden Prawns with Salted Egg Yolk
Spicy and Crispy Shredded Eel

Soup: Goldfish and Silver Flower Soup - Long net stinkhorn and White wood ear

Main Course

Mother and Child shrimp dish (Deep fried soup-burst shrimp balls and stir-fried lobster with macadamia nuts)
Crab Meats on Fish Maw
Braised Abalone and Fish Skin
Hundred flowers Monkey-head Mushrooms (Monkey-head fungus, Hericium erinaceus is the king of fungus)
Fortune Foil-wrapped Whole Fish

Dessert: Hasmar Golden Sweet Soup

[fresnohotspot]

Thank you PB and Melanie for helping make this dinner happen. I thoroughly enjoyed the food and stellar company. And many thanks to those who brought the variety of wine which helped showcase the different flavors of the dishes.

I never had any of the preparations on this unique menu before. My favorites were the Coral Napa Cabbage appetizer (subtle heat and spice) and the Spicy and Crispy Eel. The Mother and Child shrimp was outstanding, with a crispy outer layer and a rich soup filling. And it was a great finish with the wrapped fish in it's own broth. The staff was very helpful and friendly in their service and explanations of the preparations. Chef Liu is a treasure for Fresno.

[Melanie Wong]

I’m back online --- still writing the captions for the photos, but here’s the link now. Flickr’s having a little indigestion it seems and doesn’t always display all 22 of them, so try refreshing the page if that happens.

Oct 18 2008 Chef’s Tasting Menu (22 photos) -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/melaniewong/tags/dinneroct182008/

More on Tanjia cuisine -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_...

I’d also like to hear comments on the BYO wines at our table:

NV Heidrun Methode Champenoise California Avocado Blossom Honey Mead – This naturally sparkling honey wine is made in Arcata. I’ve tasted the meads from this fine producer many times when it has often been my favorite wine of the night, but this is the first time I’ve had a full bottle to spend some time with. I bought it when I was in Humboldt County earlier this month, and now I’m sorry I didn’t buy more when I had easy access. Refreshing and festive bubbling up with a full creamy head, the savory flavors and off-dry level of flavors were so lovely with the cold plates.

2007 Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc and Viognier – Good precision with nice cut from the Chenin to clean the palate and just enough Viognier in the blend to lift the aroma and round out the finish. Thanks, PB.

2006 Unger “Q” Kremstal Grüner Veltliner – Don’t know who brought this one, it’s been one of my “go-to” wines for Asian flavors. A whiff of white pepper, citrusy fruit, and good acid balance for food friendliness, especially with Chinese brassicas (e.g., bok choi, gai lan). For this meal, it had the lightness to pair well with a bite of the delicate winter melon garnishing the platter of fish maw and crab meat.

2006 Chateau Ste. Michelle Columbia Valley Riesling – Too bad, I missed tasting this one.

2006 Thurnhof Goldmuskateller Sudtirol/Alto Adige – Contributed by “windy” (thank you!), I’ll add the disclaimer that my friend, Oliver McCrum, is the importer. Aggressive nose with feline aromas and classic spice, honeysuckle and grapiness, but much more restrained on the palate in this dry style. Wish I’d remember to revisit this with a bite of the stinkhorn-wrapped asparagus tips, my usual pairing with dry Muscat wines . . . the asparagus part, that is.

1996 J. L. Wolf Forster Stift Riesling Kabinett Pfalz – This is a souvenir of my visit to the winery in Germany’s Pfalz region in 1997, and it was well-worth hand-carrying back. Even at this entry-level, the quality of material and winemaking shines through and this seemed barely into the middle-aged years despite being 12 years old. A whiff of petrol mingled with primary tropical fruits and honeyed floral scents carrying through to a fleshy mid-palate with a long and clean, crisp finish and coconutty aftertaste. Wish I had more than just this one bottle. Thinking about that trip again today, I just remembered that this was a gift from the estate. The Loosen brothers had just taken over this historic property. I had wanted to buy a few bottles, made my selection after tasting there, and then no one could find a price list to calculate the transaction. They refused to take my money and instead gave them to me gratis. Many thanks to Erni and Thomas!

2006 Martin Weyrich “Jack Ranch” Edna Valley Pinot Noir – Very pretty with juicy strawberry fruit, lithe body, and good focus, this restored my faith that not every Central Coast pinot is overripe and over extracted. I’m sorry that by the time I got to this later in the evening, there was nothing seared or roasted to match with it. The best partner at the table was the monkeyhead mushrooms. Much appreciated, Beth!

1997 Dr. Loosen Erdener Prälat Gold Kap Auslese (375 ml) – This gold capsule-designated auslese made in a dessert-style is equivalent to a higher pradikat beerenauslese. Even though 11 years old, this has the light straw color and bouncy acidity of a young and immature Riesling. The first one of these that I’ve tasted since its release, I had hoped that the medium sweetness would strike the same tone as the dessert soup. And, I think it echoed the level of sugar very well, providing a chilled and tangy counterpoint to the hot soup.

[fresnohotspot]

Great photos Melanie. They really show the art of Chef Liu. What a feast!

Now I remember that first bottle we opened - the Honey Mead wine was a refreshing start for the palate. Strange, but my memory just gets increasingly cloudy from that point on. It must have been one of those numerous bottles you listed. I was in Chow heaven.

[Windy]

My favorites were the Napa cabbage (very simple), shrimp balls, and crab meat. The shrimp balls, while messy, were wonderful. Crunchy, flavorful, unique. They reminded me of Vietnamese shrimp cakes wrapped around sugar cane, but rolled in bread crumbs and filled with soup.

I described the crab meat as a bowl of comfort food--not the way I ordinarily think of crab--but this was soothing and creamy and deserved to be eaten with a spoon. I also liked the eel a lot, but more because of the preparation (fried and sweet) than for the eel itself.

The abalone confirmed again that I have no special affinity for abalone. And the fish at the end suffered from having a subtle sauce too similar to the dishes that preceded it. The asparagus with stinkhorn (whatever that is) were tasty; I'd have happily eaten a plate of them.

I was a bit disappointed by the Goldmuskateller I brought, at least the finish, which failed to deliver on the fruity nose. We tried it both chilled and closer to room temperature. The mead was lovely, but my favorite wine of the night was the pinot noir, despite the whites being more obvious pairings for seafood.

I'm still trying to decide how I feel about eating snow frog ovaries (or what a snow frog ovary is). The flavor and texture were delicate, a sweet ending. Ovaries aside, we also had a fine conversation about what a maw was :)

The highlight of course was meeting the Fresno hounds. Ruth and I were pleased the following day, when various people asked why we were visiting from the Bay Area, to point out we'd driven across the state for dinner.

[susancinsf]

Let me join the others in thanking PB and Melanie for their organizational efforts. The food was wonderful, the company was great, and I am so happy to have a restaurant like Hunan within a fifty minute drive of my new home in Merced. Hubby tends to think of Chowhounds as being well, just a bit obsessive, but even he was a convert to the idea of driving an hour for dinner: as we walked out he commented that the last time he had a Chinese meal that good was when we last attended a banquet prepared by Chef Liu back in the China Village days! I agree with fresnohotspot that Chef Liu and Hunan is a treasure for Fresno (and the rest of the Central Valley) and I look forward to my next visit.

I am always a bit squeemish about eating eel, for reasons I can't quite explain even to myself, but the Spicy and Crispy Eel was indeed excellent, and I thought it was a standout among the cold dishes, though as Windy points out, it was more about the sweet/spicy flavors and crispy textures than the eel . I was also surprised to find I enjoyed duck web! Who knew?

I was a bit disappointed in the prawns with salty egg yolk: the coating for the prawns was a fantastic texture, and the prawns were sweet and tender, but the dish came out to the table at a cool temperature as if it had been sitting too long.

The chicken broth in the soup was delicious.

Of the main dishes, I also thought the Mother and Child shrimp dish was a true standout, even though I managed to spill a bit of my soup :-(. Wonderful combination of flavors and textures....

I was trying to avoid too much wine tasting since I had driving duty, but that Mead was delicious!

[Melanie Wong]

For many years, the valley town of Hanford was home to Imperial Dynasty. It closed recently, but it was a destination for visitors from far and wide.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5298206
Hunan Restaurant with Chef Liu at the helm may have the same potential.

It may be a while before you try duck web as good as these. When we were setting the menu, I had mentioned to our waiter, Sun, that I'd had a bad version in Palo Alto recently and was looking forward to trying Chef Liu's rendition. He did make a point of asking me whether this was better, and of course it was. I had a double portion!

You may recall the conversation at our first dinner at Hunan about the chicken supply. I had been disappointed in the quality of the stock for one of the dishes. Chef Liu apologized explaining that he could not find the proper type of older stewing hen for making a proper stock, and secondly, unlike at the Grand Hotel, he doesn't have staff working around the clock watching the stock pots. Now I understand that they have found a local farm that can supply the hens, and the proof is in that soup. Also, he had an apprentice from the local culinary school help him for two days making stock until 5am. Amazing clarity and at the same time, great intensity of flavor. I got the trick from him for clarifying the stock.

Two varieties shrimp is part of the Tan Family cuisine repetoire, one is deep-fried and the other, stir-fried. In three dinners, the shrimp two-ways has been different each time. They've all been quite wonderful, but I'll say that the soup-centered shrimp ball this time is the most impressive. I asked Chef Liu what his margin of error was for this dish, as things often go into the deep-fryer and don't come out, and wanted to know how many of these shrimp balls he made to have enough perfect ones. He said that he had 20 guests, so he made 20 pieces (and since we were only 19, the Bee photographer got one). I got a big laugh out of him when I said that I admired his confidence!

I'm glad that people liked the mead. Here's the website.

Heidrun Meadery -
http://www.heidrunmeadery.com/catalog...

[budnbz]

What an enjoyable dinner at Hunan's. Chef Liu did a very nice job. I liked the supple and tender Bamboo shoots as an appetizer. They were light and citrusy. The eel was an exotic surprise, and provided spiciness and crunchy texture. I very much liked the deep fried shrimp balls also, it was the meat and potato's of the night. I was somewhat disappointed by the 3 main course fish dishes. The stock/maw/sauce seemed to be similar in all 3 and lacked variety. I felt the Golden sweet soup was overly sweet. I prefer dessert with more substance. Never the less, the evening was exciting due to the local media coverage and the work of a world class chef. I wish I would have brought another Pinot Noir. Thanks for a memorable evening, Dave and Melanie.

[Ruth Lafler]

I have to agree that while the execution of each dish was excellent, there were some structural problems with the menu, in that the main courses were too similar in their saucing. I found myself peering longingly at the piles of peppers on other tables -- we could have used a blast of heat somewhere along the way.

My favorite was the shrimp balls: crunchy fried coating, shrimp, hot, flavorful soup, what could be better? I rather surprisingly liked the duck webs -- they were more toothsome than I expected them to be, with a faint but distinctly "ducky" flavor under the yummy mustard sauce. I liked all the cold plates, especially the eels and the pork shoulder. Of the other mains, the crab and fish maw was my favorite, managing to be both rich and delicate at the same time.

Maybe the most impressive dish was the soup, with its intensely flavorful yet crystal clear broth. The composition of the dish with the golden fungus and the "goldfish" was the kind of presentation that makes one of Chef Liu's banquets such a treat.

Among the wines, as usual the German riesling was my favorite. I usually prefer more crisply acid rieslings to more oily/petrolish ones, but this one had just enough of the petrol flavor to give it some complexity without overshadowing the other flavors. I don't think I got any of the Auslese (pout!).

[fmed]

That food looks absolutely beautiful. I'm very jealous up here right now.

[Melanie Wong]

Today someone asked me whether any other chef in North America was making either Tanjia style or Imperial cuisine. Any sightings in Vancouver?

[fmed]

Nothing so far. I will let you know for sure.

[fresnohotspot]

Got a pleasant surprise in the Fresno Bee this morning - a front page picture of a smiling Chef Liu wielding a flaming wok - and a nice article too on the recent chowdown. Here is the link, try it right away before the Bee makes it obsolete, as it tends to do.

http://www.fresnobee.com/local/v-prin...

[KenWritez]

Good article! The company, food and wine sound wonderful, I wish I had been able to attend. Next time, tho!

[Melanie Wong]

fresnohotspot started a topic on the Food Media and News board for us to discuss the article,
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/567008

The article was also printed in the San Jose Mercury News.