Category: City: Guangzhou

Izakaya feast in Guangzhou (with a special fusion dish)

A good friend of mine in Guangzhou, during my January 2019 food expedition, brought me, with another acquaintance, in his favorite Japanese-style izakaya.

We went in a residential area and the izakaya, in the best of the Japanese tradition, was in the ground floor of a non-descript apartment building.

The staff was very happy to see my friend.

The visit

The dishes started to quickly flood the table.

First dish was a shirako sashimi (it was the season). This is a Japanese delicacy very difficult to find outside Japan.

Then we got the first part of an Hokkaido’s king crab. The claws were rich of pulp to pike.

Then a typical izakaya dish was served: grilled squid with cheese. We ordered two.

A very tasty boiled abalone.

Then the rest of the crab came grilled with cheese.

Then we went from sea to land with a piece of wagyu steak.

One of the highlights of the dinner was a grilled Japanese kinki fish chosen from the available fresh fish of the day. The kinki is regarded more and more as a luxury as only limited quantities are available every year. The perfect white pulp was consistently delicious and it lived up to its reputation.

By now you would say that we were done… but some of the best dishes were yet to come. The next dish was cooked at the table and was an original sea urchin dumpling in a kimchi soup.

I can only say that I would be glad to eat this kind of dumplings every day! I found it an excellent fusion dish, including the kimchi soup that I gladly drank to the last drop.

We also sampled some yakitori. The chicken skin was perfect.

Now toward the end of the dinner, we were served Chinese pastries filled with cream cheese both sweet and savory.

Also a salad was served.

The dessert included a trio of sorbets (I had the apricot one),

And at the very end we got a panna cotta.

The check

The dinner was offered by my friend and he insisted that I took a picture of the check as he knows that I run this blog where I always publish the final check. The check was substantial and had two big ticket items (the crab and the kinki fish), with many of the other dishes very reasonably priced.

If you are craving for izakaya food in Guangzhou, this restaurant does a fantastic job. I would be back just for the sea urchin dumplings. They only have a Chinese menu.

Where in Guangzhou:
61 Jiaochang East Road (a couple of blocks south of Martyr’s Park station of metro line 1, exit A)

Sunday dim sum at the White Swan hotel in Guangzhou

The White Swan hotel is a 28-story luxury hotel overlooking the Pearl River. Opened in 1983, it is Guangzhou’s first truly five star hotel and in 2015 a massive renovation was completed. It is also a culinary destination in Guangzhou as it features a number of high-end restaurants including a Michelin-starred venue.

They even have a waterfall in the lobby.

The visit

In late January 2019, along with three friends I had a Sunday dim sum in the Hongtu Hall restaurant, the largest dining venue in the hotel overlooking the river. On weekends, they serve the same dim sum menu also in the Jade River restaurant located upstairs (it is the Michelin-starred one).

Dim sum is super popular in Guangzhou and Sunday morning is the busiest time for dim sum. We were handed our tickets and waited around half an hour to get a table in the busy dining room. Number progression was shown on a screen.

With a touch of class, the tea was professionally poured by a waitress.

Various dim sum dishes soon began to reach the table. One of the first was stewed chicken feet. It is an extremely popular dish, but I had to give a pass. I yet have to become acquainted with chicken feet, even if they seem to enjoy a great deal of popularity everywhere in East and South East Asia.

Then we had an excellent crispy egg tart (on the left) and a crispy crumbling pastry called sachima (on the right). This type of pastry originated in North East China and is now popular nationwide. It is made of fluffy strands of fried batter bound together with a stiff sugar syrup, but the result is not too sweet. It was the first time I had it.

Turnip cake. Always nice.

Classic shrimp dumplings. Very tasty.

Baked pork buns with minced pork. This dish had a delicately sweet backtaste.

Steamed rice flour.

The swan-shaped dim sum was a pastry filled with chestnut paste.

A very special dish that we shared was a portion of sun flower chicken. The chicken was served cold and what is special is that it is a chicken mainly fed with sun flower seeds. It is difficult to describe, but there is indeed something special about this chicken meat. Only drawback was that there was not a lot of meat.

The check

Total check was 1154 RMB (or 172 USD). That was 43 USD per person. This can be regarded as expensive for dim sum, but considering the five star venue the final price seemed quite acceptable.

All the dishes were excellent, I could rank them as one of the best dim sum I ever had. The menu is very extensive, so it is a very good idea to go as a party to enjoy more variety.

Where in Guangzhou:
No.1, Shamian South Street.
In Chinese: 中国广州荔湾区沙面南街1号
Website: http://www.whiteswanhotel.com/en

Beef hot pot experience in Guangzhou

In January 2019 I had a chance to experience a classic beef hot pot in Guangzhou. Beef hot pot is a very popular cuisine in China and I was fortunate enough to have the company of two local friends that introduced me to the inner workings of a beef hot pot dinner.

The visit

My friends selected a very popular establishment called Chao Fa Beef Shop (潮发牛肉店). We had to queue around ten minutes before getting a table.


The menu was very detailed and allowed to choose specific cuts. We ordered a nice assortment of cuts.

The first step of the dinner was to wash the plates in hot tea, a typical tradition in Guangzhou and Hong Kong.


The tea was also good to drink!

The second step of the evening was to get to the dip sauce station and mix your own sauce.

Above is my personal dipping sauce, mildly spicy.

Beef came on platters thinly cut. Everything was really fresh.

The meat would be positioned in a colander and dipped in the boiling hot pot. Each time it would be dipped only half a second, quickly retracted and the cycle would be repeated half a dozen times until the meat was cooked.

I was particularly impressed by the fact that each cut tasted remarkably different. I guess this was also function of the freshness of the beef provided in this restaurant.


A special dish was the beef balls pictured above. The meat of this balls is freshly prepared every day: it is grounded and hammered until it is finely pulverized.

The beef ball had a very fine texture and were impressively dense. Kind of beef squared. I particularly enjoyed them with the sauce.

We also tried some cow innards. This dish was won. Upon check in, we were given the chance to participate in an instant lottery.

I also drank coconut milk from a popular brand (celebrating 30 years in business).

The check

No check because I was a guest in this dinner.

The dinner was highly enjoyable. The beef was all excellent and I really appreciated to try so many different flavors by sampling different parts of the cow. The beef hot pot in China is a very interesting food experience.

Where in Guangzhou:
Name of the restaurant in Chinese: 潮发牛肉店
115-12 Changxing Road, Tianhe District
In Chinese: 广东省广州市天河区长兴路115-12 邮政编码: 510640

Artisan gelato in Guangzhou

One of the highlights of my January 2019 food weekend in Guangzhou was discovering an artisan gelato maker in a relative remote shopping mall. The shop is using Italian machines and making excellent ice cream leveraging on local ingredients.

The visit

I was taken to the gelato shop by a friend. It would have been virtually impossible to get there alone, as the shop only has a Chinese name and is not easily found on Google and other English-friendly portals.

The shop is located in an interesting shopping mall called Grand Tea Mall that features high-end teas from around China.

The shop has a nice sitting area outside in the middle of the shopping area.

Just looking at the seasonal flavor assortment I immediately got the impression of an artisan production. One of their feature is to always have on offer a few flavors based on tea.

We spoke to one of the owners and the main gelato maker that explained how all the ingredients were fresh and natural (made from scratch) and many phases of the production were even made by hand, producing small batches.

I had their tasting option that provided six medium scoops on cones. An excellent way to seriously sample their offering.

My selection included chocolate, ginger, and green tea.

Strawberry yogurt and two types of tea.

All flavors provided were very dense and provided clear-defined flavors.

They had Italian beverages from San Pellegrino too, in particular one of my favorite, Chinotto, a type of natural cola from Italy.

The check

The price point was very reasonable, with my feast costing just 65 RMB (or just below 10 USD).

I highly recommend this gelato shop that is well worth the trip from other parts of Guangzhou.

Where in Guangzhou:
You won’t find the address on the English web. My tip is the following:

Take the exit D at the Pazhou stop of metro line 8. The Grand Tea Mall is juts around the corner.

Or you can use the following address:
1000 Xingang E Rd, Haizhu Qu, Guangzhou
In Chinese: 广东省广州市海珠区新港东路1000号