Asian Restaurateur — Spring 2017

the plateau province of Shaanxi, which is famous for
its spiced pork and mutton dishes.

This trend towards less familiar, regional Chinese
food looks set to continue, particularly as UK diners
become less squeamish about offal and embrace
‘nose-to-tail’ eating, which uses every part of the
animal. The Cantonese restaurant Chung Ying was
established in Birmingham in 1981 and is a veteran
of the city’s Chinese food scene. Among its menu of
recognisable Cantonese dishes and an impressive
selection of dim sum, are even more traditional
offerings, such as salt and pepper duck’s tongue with
cashew nuts, and stuffed pig’s intestines. William
Wong, Director of the Chung Ying Group, says that
they’ve noticed diners becoming increasingly open to
trying more diverse dishes.

“We have found that customers have become more
adventurous with their food choices in recent years
and thus are becoming more interested in our more
traditional dishes,” says Wong. He notes that the vast
majority of items in the offal-heavy ‘Traditional tastes’
section of Chung Ying’s menu are still ordered mainly
by Chinese diners. “But we are finding that more
and more British diners are becoming interested,
particularly as more unusual cuts of meat are
becoming fashionable,”.

STREET FOOD SUCCESS
The growth in popularity of global street food has
also helped to fuel the rise of regional Chinese
cuisine in the UK. Bristol street food joint Chilli
Daddy started life as a market stall and now has three
venues in the city. Founder Dr Weng and his wife Jing
Li were inspired to launch the venture when a friend
proposed that their home-cooked Szechuan food
would be popular with foodies. That friend wasn’t
wrong. “In 2011, at our first stall, we prepared the
food and took it to the market, and within two hours
all the food had sold out,” recalls Weng.

Szechuan cuisine is noted for its liberal use of fiery
chilli and tongue-tingling Szechuan pepper, but
Dr Weng says this hasn’t been a turn-off for British
customers. “When we first started, we thought
probably local people can’t handle this, but our
experience tells us the majority of local people like,
or even love, spicy food,” he says.

LATE TO THE TABLE
The move towards restaurants that specialise in the
food of a particular region is a shift that has been
steadily taking place among Indian restaurants over
the past ten years, and there is growing knowledge
among the spice-loving public of the various cuisines
of the subcontinent. Many curry-lovers are now
proudly aware of the differences not only between

food from the north and south of India, but between

that from Goa and Kerala, or Gujarat and the Punjab.

So why has this change been so much slower to take

place among Chinese restaurants?

MORE EXPERTISE IN THE KITCHEN

Simon Bailey, director of the Authentic Pub Company,

thinks that tight controls on immigration may be to

blame. Speaking in the 2016 Oriental Food Report,

he commented: “Oriental food hasn’t evolved as

much as Indian because it’s all about the expertise

in the kitchen and the government has made it very

difficult to access foreign cooking talent.”

William Wong of Chung Ying agrees that a lack of

expertise may be holding the industry back. “I think

that Cantonese restaurants will continue to become

more westernised and lose their authenticity,” he

says. “One of the reasons is because there are less

chefs in today’s world who are able to cook authentic

dishes. This is probably the biggest challenge that

restaurants face.”

OPPORTUNITIES AHEAD

The 2016 Oriental Food Report, published by oriental

supermarket Wing Yip, looked at the influence of

Chinese and other South East Asian cuisines in the

UK. It found that the oriental restaurant market in the

UK has grown by around 20% over the last five years.

The survey notes that this expansion creates ‘massive

scope for consumers to be drawn to discover the

cuisines within China’.

Andrew Wong urges chefs to give careful

consideration to which traditional dishes they

incorporate into their menus: “There is most

definitely an opportunity to introduce regional

Chinese cuisine to UK diners, but the chef has a

responsibility to his guests to create and serve dishes

that they think will work well. I’m not going to put

braised snake or bird’s nest onto a menu because my

guests will not have a cultural connection to them. It

would be a gimmick and just wouldn’t work”. AR

ABOVE:

Andrew Wong

SPRING 2017