KAOHSIUNG (Taiwan News) – A rare culinary event is set to start on Saturday at Gen Restaurant (雋中餐廳) when Michelin-starred Chef Matt Chen (陳泰榮) partners with his mentor, Cantonese master Chef Ip Chi-kwong (葉志光).
These two-day-only culinary events aim to revive the golden age of Hong Kong's traditional Cantonese cuisine.
With over half a century of culinary expertise, Yip said that Cantonese cuisine demands patience and meticulous execution. "Chinese cooking can never be rushed," he said, echoing the teachings of his own mentor, Chef Li Qiang (李強), who stressed precision in every step.
Yip expressed concern that "some dishes, if not made now, will be lost forever." This urgency fueled his and Chen's decision to recreate these nearly forgotten dishes, breathing new life into traditional Cantonese cuisine.
Chen noted that cuisine in the 1960s and 70s was simpler, featuring everyday fare like salted fish and tofu, which now sees more refined interpretations. For this event, the duo sourced premium ingredients like squab, crabs, and grouper from southern Taiwan, ensuring ultimate freshness.
The special menu opens with lotus root cake, a seemingly simple dim sum that requires precise technique. This will be followed by imperial bird's nest pipa tofu, an elegant classic requiring intricate preparation, where bird's nest is rehydrated, chilled for optimal texture, then deep-fried within handmade tofu, offering a crispy exterior and delicate interior.
The Peking sauce stir-fried eel balls fuse northern Chinese flavors with Hong Kong's stir-fry techniques, featuring golden-fried eel coated in a rich, savory, and slightly spicy sauce.
Main courses include smoked supreme pigeon, which uses Pingtung squab marinated and smoked with Pu-erh tea and sugar for a tender, flavorful dish.
Yip’s most cherished and representative dish is double-boiled shark's fin stock. This auspicious banquet dish, symbolizing success, demonstrates the ultimate pursuit of precision in Cantonese cooking, featuring painstakingly prepared shark's fin slow-cooked with carved winter melon, Iberian ham, and a clear, rich broth simmered for 8 to 12 hours.
Crab roe with king prawns showcases the essence of Cantonese seafood, combining tender prawns with fresh crab roe in a silken sauce. The dish is dubbed the "Hong Kong version of Buddha jumps over the wall," a luxurious dish brimming with premium ingredients like fish maw, sea cucumber, abalone, and braised pork trotters.
The meal concludes with eight-treasure tea, a rare, ancient wellness drink once exclusive to the affluent, made with various mushrooms, lilies, and lotus seeds, slow-stewed for a clear, warming, and nourishing finish.
This event marks a new chapter, with Yip continuing to guide the kitchen at Gen, infusing Kaohsiung with his five decades of culinary artistry. Starting in August, Gen Restaurant will launch three new menus, each reflecting the chefs’ culinary journeys from childhood memories to professional mastery and innovative vision.
(Taiwan News, Lyla Liu video)
