2019-07-26

【Aiden in English】

        And I thought my dining experience was luxurious in Fragrant Pavilion in Hangzhou.

When one mentions "fit for a king", one sees a massive set of food in front of a gluttonous man with a gold crown and handlebar mustache. In China, that fat man is replaced by the given dictator of that generation, and he doesn't have a mustache. Disregard my tangent. Tonight, mother and I dine like dictators. 

        Standing outside the Cheng Mansion, a courtyard house in Beijing, we confusedly hesitated to enter a rather ordinary red door. To the left, a brick wall — to the right, a brick wall. The red door had a camera and a microphone attached at the shoulder level. With nothing else to do, my mother gently rang the doorbell... She rang it again, less gently. The third time, she applied great force to the button, and as if the staff realized the danger of waiting any longer, they rushed out to greet a somewhat annoyed Chinese mother — second on the list of most dangerous animals behind the common angry Chinese mother.

        As if to rub the upper-class scent in our faces, our dinner would be served in a private room at a table of two, complete with a set of private waiters and waitresses and a picture of Mao Zedong creepily staring at us. Tonight's course of action (excuse the pun): a set of side veggies and meats followed by six dishes and moon cake. Now, I have a problem while on vacation and it's not necessarily a bad habit — I don't eat a lot. So when mother dropped the bomb about spending $587 ($1 = ￥7.02 currently) for a dinner, I avoided all consumables from 8 am and on. Twelve hours later, I barely felt a nibble of hunger, much less the stomach for a full six-course meal. But when the price tag is slapped in your face, guilt provides the motivation to get through many obstacles, food being one.

        Course One: Six Fresh Fruits. Not much to say here, let's move on.

        Course two: Braised New Zealand Black Abalone. The jump from course one to two was quite large. We went from average supermarket produce to hand-dived gold from the bottoms of the Pacific Ocean. Much like gold, I could almost taste the dollar bills in my mouth. The abalone was smoked and cooked like pot roast, but the texture and seafood scent gave the dish uniqueness. Oddly enough, the star of that course was a special side sauce that enhanced the flavor.

        Course Three: Decoction of Eight Ingredients. I'm pretty sure the golden rule for Chinese soup is "if it has random objects in the soup —edible or not— and has a meaty flavor, it's serve-able". The soup tasted like chicken noodle soup, and there were random floating mushrooms and other expensive ingredients. Checked all the boxes. Tasted pretty good.

        Course Four: Braised Lobster with Zealong Tea Noodle. A common stigma for lobsters is that the shelled redfish cost boatloads of money. Well, in comparison to some other luxury foods in the world, lobster is not ridiculously expensive; however, at this estate, regular lobster is not enough. The lobster meat was infused with lotus roots. For some restaurants, the chef would add an immense amount of lotus roots to cheapen the production cost, but not this place. No, they did not shrimp on the lobster (last pun I promise). Adding lotus roots provided crunch and tenderness, masking perhaps some of the imperfections lobster can have. The dish also had some oolong tea-flavored noodles, but I really did not care. Lobster demands the main stage anywhere.

        Course Five: Braised Ox Tail, Gourmet Morchella Mushroom, Black Tiger Prawn, and Crispy Sea Salt Slice. Ever wonder how old people eat meat without teeth? Well, they probably use all their retirement money to dine on cow tail. When I took my fork and touched the cow tail, the fork passed right through. As I recall the process of eating the meat, nothing really surfaces beyond me questioning "wow, is this even meat?" My subconscious kept saying "no". 

        Course Six: Handmade Mango Yogurt with Rose Cake. At first, I thought, "after all of this, you're giving me yogurt." Then I took a spoonful and I exclaimed, "This isn't yogurt, this is warm cheesecake!" Truly, the yogurt tasted exactly like a slightly warmer melted vanilla cheesecake, which is not a knock. If all yogurt tasted like this, you could say goodbye to weight watching. The yogurt had so much buttery goodness, I couldn't stop. Unfortunately, the cup only held so much yogurt, and any more butter in my body may have caused unwanted science experiments; thus I refrained from asking for more.

        $587. Final bill. Was it worth it? I don't believe so. Picture a graph of money-to-value ratio. The first $50 are normally spent for great value, but after $100 the value increase flattens out. An example would be that for $80, one can grab a great burger, but for $200, one can get an amazing burger that is only perhaps slightly better than the cheaper burger. At the same time, the $80 burger consumer would never know how good the $200 burger tasted like and thus would always perceive the more expensive burger to be two and a half times better. 

         Conclusion: great food, but not worth a second look.

【紅霞譯文】

        我原以為在杭州解香樓吃的那頓晚餐夠奢侈的。

        只要與“宮廷宴”沾邊，人們就會看到豐盛宴席前面坐着一位頭頂金冠臉長翹八胡的饕餮王。在中國，那個大腹便便的傢伙被達官貴人取而代之，只不過沒留小鬍子罷矣，別介意我扯走題了。今晚，我和媽媽像達官貴人那樣去吃頓晚飯。

        站在程府門外，我們拿不準到底該進哪道看似普通的北京四合院小紅門，左邊是磚牆，右邊為牆磚，門上平肩處裝有攝像頭和對話孔。既然沒別的事兒可干，媽媽輕輕點了門鈴……她又按了一次，下手時沒再那麼矜持；第三回，她的動作乾脆利落，估計工作人員察覺到若繼續下去要捅婁子，因此他們趕緊出門迎候這位有點起急的中國媽，要知道惹毛的中國媽緊次於世界最危險動物──“常愛生氣的中國媽”。

        或許為讓我們尊享上等待遇，這頓盛餐被安排在僅供兩人消遣的獨立包間，並且配備了美女帥哥專屬服務生，牆上懸掛的毛澤東畫像始終神秘地注視着我們。今晚方案（借用雙關語）：先推出一套蔬菜肉類副食，再送來六道主餐與中秋月餅，問題在於每當外出度假我都吃不多──不一定是壞毛病，因此當媽媽豪擲$587(時下外幣匯率：1美元=7.02人民幣)炸彈，我只好從大清早八點鐘開始節食閉骨。12個鐘頭過後，我依舊毫無餓肚子的感覺，更甭提裝下六道菜的胃口，但當賬單甩在面前，內疚驅使你衝破種種阻力，食物被視為其一。

        第一道菜：新鮮六品水果頭盤。這裡毋庸贅述，接着往下說吧。

        第二道菜：鹵燒新西蘭黑金鮑冷頭盤。從第一道到第二道跨度非常大，食材也從普通超市大批生產的成品一下子切換到太平洋海底人工打撈的黃金。食同金箔，我滿口只嘗出銅錢味道。雖說鮑魚經鹵醃燉熟，其口感及其鮮味非同尋常，但出乎意料地，程府秘制的調味蘸醬為這道菜餚錦上添花。

        第三道菜：松茸天仙草魚唇八珍湯。我十分清楚中餐湯飲的黃金法則：“如果選用任何湯料，無論可吃與否，只要帶有肉味就成。“八珍湯嘗起來像雞湯麵，表面漂了幾片蘑菇和其它昂貴配料，每項指標都合乎要求，味道不錯。

        第四道菜：璽龍茶油燜龍蝦配璽龍茶麵。龍蝦惹人無語，連紅身子外面的硬殼都值很多錢。當然，與世上其它珍美佳餚相比，龍蝦並不算貴，但在程府里，普通燒法根本撐不起台面，不如來一道蓮藕餡龍蝦，對於某些餐館來說，廚師靠添加大量蓮藕降低生產成本，而這家恰恰相反，他們哪裡把龍蝦放在眼裡（我保證這是最後一個雙關語），蓮藕能使食物脆嫩可口，藉之彌補龍蝦肉質老硬的缺陷。這道菜還搭配少許烏龍茶味的麵條，不過我並不介意，龍蝦無愧於天下美食界的台柱子。

        第五道菜：古法燒牛尾配海鹽三色面片。是否想過老人家沒牙怎麼吃肉？沒錯，為了吃頓牛尾巴，他們搞不好要搭上全部養老金。當我用叉子插牛尾巴的時候，叉子竟然長驅直入。回想前後過程，我免不了疑慮重重：“哇塞，剛吃的是肉嗎？” 可我的潛意識一直回答：“不是”。

        第六道菜：程府手造芒果酸奶配玫瑰餅。起初我還想：“末了竟拿酸奶應付”，等蒯了一勺嘗過之後我驚嘆不已：“這算哪門子酸奶，分明是融化的奶酪蛋糕！”千真萬確，酸奶吃上去真的有點像融化的香草奶酪蛋糕，這倒沒什麼不好。如果所有的酸奶都做成這個味道，那麼你盡可跟減肥說聲再見，酸奶含有很多黃滋滋香噴噴的成分，我保證會吃個沒夠。別高興得太早，盛酸奶的杯子畢竟大小有限，何況體內多餘的奶油可能早已引起不必要的科學反應，因此我沒再多吃酸奶。

        $578美元，結賬總額，值得嗎？我不相信。試想一張貨幣對價值比率圖表，前面$50美元通常物有所值，但超過了$100美元，價值增長便趨於平緩。舉例來說，有人能用$80美元買來相當好吃的漢堡，也可用$200買來非常好吃的漢堡，不過，昂貴的漢堡或許只比便宜的漢堡稍微好吃一點，同時，吃$80漢堡的人從來不知道$200漢堡什麼味道，所以才覺得$200美元堡要比$80的要好出兩倍半。

        總而言之，程府宴珍饈美饌，但沒必要再來光顧。

〖摘自“程府宴”簡介〗

        “程府宴”系由毛澤東主席的廚師長──程汝明所創所傳。

         程汝明在跟隨毛澤東及其家庭近22年職業生涯中，烹調出了主席詩詞──《水調歌頭·游泳》中美味的“紫蘇武昌魚”，自創出了毛主席與英國元帥蒙哥馬利先生同品共賞的“元帥蝦”精心秘制出來主席最愛吃的“紅燒肉”……而醬這道道程府名菜匯總成宴，即曰“程府宴”。

Today in History(歷史上的今天):

2017: Flash Story─My Glory to Your Honor(小小說─為你驕傲)

2015: 76ers Overnight Camp(費城七六人隊籃球寄宿營)

2013: Drama Camp-5(戲劇夏令營之五)

Crosslink(相關博文):

China(出遊中國)