| 2010 Legacy of Taste |
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| Food | |
| Saturday, 13 November 2010 | |
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Alan Coxon and Ching He Huang
For the third year, Tsingtao Beer’s nationwide search for Britain’s favourite Chinese restaurant has drawn the public’s curiosity over the secrets of Chinese cuisine and discovered some of the most authentic Chinese restaurants in the country.
The competition, with over 500 nominations, ended on November 28 at a glittering ceremony held at central London’s Courthouse Doubletree by Hilton, where finalists and guests viewed footage of the judging process at a private cinema screening. The London restaurant Pearl Liang, in Paddington, won this year’s award. The other three finalist restaurants are Chop Chop in Edinburgh, Sweet Mandarin in Manchester and Gourmet Garden in Hendon.
The panel of judges is led by celebrity chef, Ching He Huang, and includes international broadcast presenter and food archaeologist, Alan Coxon, and James Wright of Halewood International, UK distributor of Tsingtao Beer.
Ching said: “The Tsingtao Legacy of Taste competition was created for the public to recognise and reward the restaurants that they believe set the best standards for Chinese dining. So to have been selected as one of the four finalists is a fantastic achievement.
“We are judging each of the four finalists on the quality and attention to detail that it demonstrates, specifically with regards to its food, service and surroundings. The judging process was particularly hard, but Pearl Liang really did stand out for me as is truly an authentic restaurant which sets the best standards for Chinese dining.”
This year the competition is bigger than ever, targeting 3000 restaurants across the UK. The 500 that entered the voting stage actively encouraged their customers to support them and vote through a dedicated website, which was also used as an information portal for visitors. Giving the power of selection back to the public ensured a democracy that rewarded the restaurants which set the best standards in the public eye. Once voting closed, the three judges visited each restaurant to taste their best selection of dishes.
Pearl Liang is a stylish and cosmopolitan London restaurant founded by Humphrey Lee. The kitchen at Pearl Liang is always busy but the seating area is nicely decorated with water features, bamboo and a full room-length painting of Chinese blossom branches to create an authentic oriental atmosphere. The space is arranged so as to give areas of intimacy as well as private dining. The dishes presented are sophisticated but finely cooked, including baked lobster in ginger and spring onion with noodles, fillet of Dover sole in dried chili onion, and tari dome with monk vegetables. The judges commended the care put into the preparation of the food, in particular making sure that the whole dish is well flavoured despite the sophistication.
Chop Chop is an authentic restaurant founded by Jian Wang, a North Eastern Chinese lady, who made it her mission to introduce to the British public authentic food from mainland China, different from Cantonese dishes which are conventionally believed to be representative of the Chinese cuisine. Her dishes reflect home cooking and the essence of Chinese heritage, including aubergines with garlic and tender green beans with chilli. All dishes are made with no artificial colourings or preservatives. “It is important for the quality of each portion to be consistent,” she said. “I want to control the quality of my dishes the way factories make food, so my own factory is in my central kitchen.” Chop Chop’s customer mailing list has 4000 loyal members, who are sent birthday and anniversary messages. The interior of the restaurant is decorated with traditional Chinese paintings in a simple and elegant style, which the judges commended as authentic, along with the food flavour, portion size and presentation.
Sweet Mandarin in Manchester is run by three sisters - Lisa, her twin, Helen, and Janet. The sisters grew up helping out in their parents' family restaurant and takeaway, but had no ambitions to enter the family trade. Seven years ago, however, the three made a trip back to Hong Kong, where their mother had been born and returned to the UK with the idea to open their own restaurant. The northern Quarter of Manchester has lots of young people who work all day and come home late, so the sisters began hosting events specifically for residents to come in and get to know each other. “We realised that for us to have a business in this location we need to provide something more than just food. We had to help to create a community spirit,” said Lisa. Having learnt the skills of Chinese cooking, the sisters improved the recipes through their own experiments and started giving cooking lessons to members of the surrounding community, including school children. Sweet Mandarin was selected as Gordon Ramsay's favourite local restaurant last year.
The final restaurant is Gourmet Garden, where Head Chef, Albert Lee and his team cooked up a delicious banquet. With a philosophy of offering authentic Far Eastern delicacies of the highest quality, Lee has emphasised that his methods of cooking are still the same as 40 years ago – unchanged by the rapid pace of city life nowadays. The restaurant prides itself over its various mouth-watering vegetarian options, which made the judges unknowingly debate which meat has been used. Although small, the restaurant has a unique charm and all dishes are full of flavour, very much like what one would cook at home.
Ching praised all the restaurants for championing the heritage of Chinese cuisine and bringing together the Chinese community spirit. She said that at a time when there is a shortage of skilled Chinese chiefs as immigration rules are becoming increasingly tight, these restaurants are upholding an essential part of the Chinese culture in Britain.
The competition’s sponsor, Tsingtao Beer, created the Legacy of Taste competition in 2008 to protect the heritage of Chinese cooking and highlight the Chinese restaurants across UK that herald the true art of Chinese cuisine.
In 2008, the competition’s first year, the winner was Gourmet Garden, because it offered high quality, authentic dishes from the exotic Far East at reasonable prices, in a warm and inviting atmosphere. In 2009 the award went to Yang Sing in Manchester. A unique charm and dedication to quality have earned Yang Sing a reputation as being amongst the best Cantonese restaurants in Europe. This year the award went to Pearl Liang, which combined carefully prepared food with an inviting atmosphere and oriental interior design, providing customers the best dining experience.
Over the past three years, the award has successfully improved the British public’s perception and awareness of Chinese food, rewarded restaurants that made a key difference to their respective communities and publicised the top qualities of Chinese food for future restaurants and customers to consider - authenticity, care in preparation and the experience of dining.
Cecily Liu
Pearl Liang winning the award
 Cinema screening
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