Life No Longer a Bowl of Cherries in China

Last year when Chilean cherries were on sale in China, it was "cherry freedom"

Last March I wrote about "cherry freedom", where people boasted on social media how they could afford expensive foods to show off their wealth. It started with imported cherries, and then a vegetable called xiangchun that cost 80 yuan to 100 yuan for 500 grams, which equated to a lobster, 10 abalone, or 39 crayfish.

But it looks like those "cherry freedom" days are over following the coronavirus pandemic that has made a huge dent in the Chinese economy, let alone the entire world.

Previously there was a big demand for Chilean cherries and Peruvian avocados by the Chinese middle class. But now sellers at the Jiangan wholesale fruit and vegetable market in Guangzhou are feeling the effects of battered consumer confidence due to declining job prospects and incomes.

These were the first batch of Peruvian avocados sold in China

"Demand has plummeted since the outbreak started. Retailers are very cautious about placing orders... most of us have been losing money, whether selling imported fruit or domestic fruit," said Li Xiaoqiang, a fruit importer at Jiangan market.

"We keep reducing the prices. Take Chilean grapes. The wholesale price used to be 180 yuan (US$25.37) for 8kg, and it is now just 100 yuan or even 80 yuan. Our importers' losses could be up to 800,000 yuan for a container."

Egyptian oranges used to be 100 yuan for 15kg around the same time last year, but now are only 70 yuan.

"Imported cherries are even harder to sell," Li added.

While the market's operators claim 80 percent of China's imported fruits first stop at Jiangan, these days vendors are passing the time playing games on their phones.

80 percent of China's imported fruits go to Jiangan Market

One merchant surnamed Wang said last year the market used to sell 60 to 80 containers of imported oranges a day, but now only sell 15 containers with the price slashed to 50 percent.

"Imported oranges are mainly for hotels, restaurants, clubs and karaoke lounges -- if oranges don't sell well, it means China's service industry is still in deep trouble," Wang said.

Over the past decade China's fruit imports had been steadily rising from US$1.63 billion in 2009 to US$10.3 billion last year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

Patricia Lin is a white-collar worker in Shanghai and had her pay cut last month, while friends were laid off due to the pandemic. "To be honest, the only thing in my head these days is how to cut spending and save enough money to pay my home mortgage.

"Fruits are good and necessary for health, but I think I won't be able to afford imported cherries or Japanese grapes for a long while. Instead I will turn to local fruits like apples and pears," she said.

How will Li steer China's economy out of the pandemic?

Imagine how many millions of other people have the same thinking as Lin and then you have a serious cascade effect on not only the fruit business, but every other sector as well, particularly luxury, fashion, and restaurants.

Beijing may have hoped people getting back to work would help get things back to normal, but it won't be like before. Wonder if this will be reflected in Premier Li Keqiang's work report later this week when the "two sessions" start on May 22, and what the country's economic road map to economic recovery will be.

Obsessed with "Xiangchun Freedom"

If you can afford to eat this vegetable, it's as expensive as a lobster

What can you eat to show your peers you've made it financially?

In China it was cherries, but now it's a vegetable called xiangchun 香椿, the young red leaves of the Chinese mahogany tree that are the in thing to munch on. The basil-tasting leaves have become so prized that in places like Beijing it costs 80 yuan to 100 yuan (US$12 to US$30) for a catty or 500 grams.

People have taken to social media to complain about the price of the vegetable that could cost as much as a lobster, 10 abalone or 39 crayfish.

Xiangchun leaves are from the Chinese mahogany tree

"You can buy this [vegetable] to show off your wealth," one person on Weibo commented.

Another said: "There's plenty of xiangchun trees at my grandmother's house. I feel like I've just found the path to riches."

The first spring leaves of the tree are traditionally used in Chinese cooking, especially in the north, where it is stirfried with eggs or tofu, or used as filling for dumplings.

Xiangchun per catty costs more than pork in Beijing, where it is priced at 8 yuan to 10 yuan. In places like Qingdao in Shandong province, Xiaogan in Hubei province and Xian in Shaanxi province, the vegetable costs 40 yuan per 500 grams.

However, if you can afford to buy and eat xiangchun, then you are considered to have "xiangchun freedom", similar to people who can afford to buy imported cherries to give as gifts. Before the Spring Festival this year, imported cherries were selling for 60 yuan per catty in Beijing.

Economist Yao Zhiyong is with the School of Management at Fudan University and says the wide use of the terms "xiangchun freedom" and "cherry freedom" showed a decline in real spending power.

Xiangchun are stirfried with egg or tofu, or in dumplings

"Many items have become more expensive, but people's salaries haven't gone up accordingly," Yao says. "In the meantime there are other expenses -- education, housing, healthcare -- that can't be ignored. That's why people are bemoaning their lack of 'cherry freedom' or 'xiangchun freedom'."

The Chinese have this cruel obsession of constantly comparing themselves to other people, either to psychologically feel like they have a leg up on their peers or to bemoan the reality that they are never going to win the rat race.

It's as if this competition is the only way they know how to relate to others which is unhealthy and scary. But the ironic thing is that people are willing to pay top dollar for a seasonal vegetable, and I'm all for a greener lifestyle!

Michelin Three-Starred Dim Sum

Lung King Heen's prized baked barbecue pork buns with pine nuts

After making a reservation almost a month ago, my friend YTSL and I headed to Lung King Heen, the Michelin three-starred restaurant in the Four Seasons Hong Kong for dim sum. She had tried it and raved about it and so I was curious enough to want to sample it too.

An idea of what the interior of the restaurant is like!

We sat down to lunch at 12.30pm, a bit surprised the place wasn't full already -- but then again perhaps tai tais want to sleep in on a Saturday...

YTSL suggested we order all the signature dim sum dishes, particularly the baked barbecued pork buns with pine nuts. Since there were two of us, the waiter told us most dishes came in three pieces and would we like to have two, with a price adjustment? What a novel idea.

However, we did keep the barbecue pork bun order to three pieces and YTSL was in bun heaven.

Baked whole abalone puff with diced chicken

The bun is fluffy and light, and manages to hold the filling, which is choc full of char siu and some pine nuts for added texture. The end result is a delicious combination that isn't oily or too buttery, meaty and slightly crunchy.

Another delicious pastry is the baked whole abalone puff with diced chicken, the abalone is small, sliced for easy consumption, but very meaty.

Steamed rice rolls are only available on weekends, so we made sure we ordered one of them -- the signature one of lobster and water chestnut in fermented bean sauce. It was very decadent, with lots of fresh lobster meat, added crunch from the water chestnut and very flavourful.

This week's weekend dim sum special was steamed beef balls, and they were executed well, very tender, and moist. We also liked the vegetarian steamed assorted mushroom and zucchini dumpling that was packaged in a translucent wrapper, very delicate and delicious.

1/2 portion of scallops with pear, shrimp paste, Yunnan ham

The steamed shrimp dumplings with wild mushrooms were a minor fault in terms of flavour -- it goes to show that the classic pairing shrimp dumplings with bamboo shoots is done for a reason and shouldn't be altered. We liked the shrimp -- very meaty and crunchy, but the mushrooms didn't seem to go with the shrimps in terms of texture and flavour.

Oh well. Not to fret over. But we did like the scallops with a bit of shrimp in it, on a piece of pear base and encased in a white pastry with shrimp paste and Yunnan ham. Absolutely exquisite how it was packaged and executed.

We got a few desserts to try on the house, including a black sesame and walnut mousse (topped with bits of gold foil), osmanthus jelly, almond cookies, coconut glutinous rice cakes shaped like diamonds, and little balls of mango encased in desicated coconut.

A delicate flower with warm custard inside was delicious!

In the end both of us shelled out HK$460 each and the restaurant still wasn't packed by the time we left around 2.45pm. We were quite surprised to see other people eat quickly and then leave -- they must come here so frequently that it's not something they savour...

Lung King Heen

4/F, Four Seasons Hong Kong

8 Finance Street

Central

3196 8880

fourseasons.com/hongkong/

Eat Like a Gourmand

Fine Chinese dining in a very classic English environment

Howard's Gourmet opened in Central last November and it has generated positive and negative buzz. While many rave about the food, there are critics who scoff at the high prices for the set lunch and dinner menus. But I have been entranced by the dishes here, and find them innovative and above all, delicious.

Stewed sea cucumber was the highlight of the meal

Howard Cai is the restaurateur behind it, having opened Howard's Gourmet in Guangzhou for 10 years. He quit his job as a civil servant and studied in the United States. While he was there he didn't like the food he ate in restaurants and began cooking his own.

For him the temperature of the food is very important and even calculates the amount of time it would take for the dish to go from the kitchen to the diners' table, because the food is still technically cooking on the way there.

Not only that, Cai tries to create interesting flavours with a dish. He doesn't want to cook, say abalone in the typical Chinese way; he decides how he wants the ingredient to taste and the figures out how it should be cooked, mainly to bring out the natural flavours and not hide it under heavy sauces.

Deep-fried crab meat cake with seaweed was creative

The end result is modern Chinese cuisine that has a more scientific basis, and also rooted in traditional culture in terms of the quality of the ingredients and how to balance them in a dish.

I took my mom and aunt to try the set lunch menu because they would not be able to taste anything like this in Vancouver.

We started with small appetizers in small bowls. One was fish cakes sliced into mini diamond shapes with also miniaturized beans, the other mountain yam with wood ear fungus, and a small cup of full-flavoured vegetable broth .

Delicate simmered seasonal vegetables in bouillon

Next came two relatively small slices of mackerel cooked and marinated Chiu Chow style with a dab of a miso sauce that was very refreshing and delicate.

Stewed sea cucumber was next and was the highlight of the meal. It was braised for such a long time that the pieces practically melted in the mouth they were so smooth. The thick broth they came in was fantastic and full of flavour too that we finished it to the last drop.

An intriguing dish came next -- deep-fried crab meat cake with seaweed. Perhaps it was meant to emulate home-style steamed meat cakes, but with a crunchy outer layer, in this case made from seaweed. The result was a slight crunch and soft on the inside, with a hint of crab taste in the middle. Again the broth here was cleaned up.

The slice of braised pork belly was good, though we preferred the accompanying large piece of bitter melon, while simmered golgi berry leaves in bouillon were so delicate and had subtle flavours from the garlic.

Homemade noodles are in this hot and sour soup

A signature dish is the hot and sour noodles, and we were forewarned they could be spicy. The noodles are homemade and have a bouncy texture, while the sauce is a slow-burn spicy with a strong sour taste. The spiciness is such that it entices diners to whet their appetites and eat more.

Finally to balance things out, dessert was almond soup with lotus seeds, but not what one would expect. Instead they were cooked to the point of melting into a kind of jelly that we found at the bottom of the bowl.

At the end of the meal I was just full, and this is the point Cai wants his diners to be at -- not too full and their taste buds sated.

It was such an elegant treat to be eating such a fine meal in a traditional English-style surroundings designed by David Tang. Who knew he could be such a great interior decorator?

For dessert, almond soup with lotus seeds that are like jelly

Howard's Gourmet

5/F, CCB Tower

3 Connaught Road Central

Central
2115 3388

howardsgourmet.com

Going Under Cover

A La Perla boutique in Beijing selling lingerie that have become hot in  China

What do basements and lingerie have in common?

They are the new must-haves in China's "new normal".

With Chinese President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption drive continuing with no end in sight, people are spending their dollars literally underground -- as inconspicuously as possible.

The word these days is that rich businessmen and officials are digging basements in their homes, or if they already have one, to renovate it to become their new playroom or dining area to host guests.

An illegal basement caused neighbouring homes to collapse

That's because there's a new campaign encouraging regular folk to take pictures of those who seem to be dining beyond their means in the hopes of identifying and tracking them down. But with a basement, the uber rich can still have their abalone and shark's fin without prying eyes condemning them for their lavish tastes.

Come to think of it, former Hong Kong chief executive contender Henry Tang Ying-yen was probably onto something when he -- oops we mean his wife -- designed a massive basement under their Kowloon Tong home to include a wine-tasting room, cinema, changing room and a gym...

That led to the beginning of the end of Tang's chances to become Hong Kong's top dog. He can comiserate with a Chinese businessman and city legislator in Beijing who got into trouble late last month when he was building an illegal basement 18 metres deep that caused his neighbours' houses to collapse.

Henry Tang and his wife Lisa Kuo faced scrutiny

Major boo-boo.

Not only did the construction workers not have a permit, but also no project supervisor or even architectural plans. The neighbours are now homeless.

Meanwhile the anti-corruption campaign has also resulted in consumers shunning luxury brand outerwear and instead focusing on what they're wearing underneath.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting strong sales for $300 bras and other underwear. Previously people would not shell out for items others would not be able to see, but now lingerie is a hot commodity. High-end brand La Perla saw a 42 percent jump in sales last year in its stores in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and recently the brand opened a shop for men selling $200 silk boxers and $3,000 silk robes.

Expensive lingerie is the new bling...

Young women who have worked for a few years don't mind splashing out for expensive underwear -- perhaps finding it sexy to wear something luxurious underneath that no one else knows about?

Looks like everyone's going underground or underneath to hide their wealth -- above board or ill-gotten.

Perhaps we'll soon be seeing bras studded with diamonds, or boxers in gold thread soon?

Decadent Celebration

The memorable Monkfish liver dish that started the kaiseki at RyuGin

About a month ago I bumped into Hideaki Sato, chef de cuisine at RyuGin in Elements. He told me in a few months he was leaving the restaurant he helped earn two Michelin stars.

So YTSL and I decided to celebrate Chinese New Year with a splurge by dining here one more time.

The weather has been unseasonably warm so when we arrived on the 101st floor of International Commerce Centre or ICC, it was pretty foggy outside which was a pity, but not unusual!

Delicate flavours in the chawanmushi dish with sea urchin

Nevertheless, we were looking forward to having a memorable meal -- for over HK$2,000 ($258)! -- and for the most part the kaiseki lived up to its billing.

To start off the meal, we had Monkfish liver or ankimo from Hokkaido, that for some more discerning palates is even better than foie gras and I have to agree.

It was presented in cubes with spring onion in mustard and miso sauce, garnished with thin slices of radish and orange zest. The flavour of the akimo was delicate yet full of rich foie gras-like flavour that wasn't heavy, and had a smooth texture.

This was followed by another favourite dish, hot egg custard topped with yuba, or tofu skin, and sea urchin. YTSL savoured the uni and wished she could have had more! The yuba added another texture to the smooth-tasting chawanmushi, and of course the sea urchin gave the dish a depth of flavour with its taste of the sea.

Fantastic slow-cooked abalone with radish sauce

We also enjoyed the next dish that was presented in a bowl covered with a giant abalone shell. Inside was simmered abalone, sliced horizontally and topped with grated radish sauce that perfectly complemented the seafood.

The texture of the abalone was unlike Cantonese braised abalone. Here it was like a thick meaty mushroom, but with that distinctive abalone taste that wasn't covered in a thick sauce.

Next came the charcoal grilled amadai in a broth with leek and winter turnip. We were advised to drink the soup first, which seemed a bit bland, but had a comforting taste, before eating the fish, that was overcooked.

Now halfway through the meal we were given a long plate with four different sashimi and the wooden plank the small dishes were presented on was decorated with a landscape of sea and mountains in salt!

Signature charcoal grilled Alfonsino topped with roasted rice

On the far left were two slices of flounder that were not very flavourful, but then they were followed by thin slices of geoduck that I haven't had much of a chance to eat since it's so expensive. But it was wonderful to be able to taste the fresh crunchiness. Next were small firefly squid that you popped into your mouth and didn't need any soy sauce because it had lots of flavour packed inside. Finally the yellowtail that is now in season was delicious.

Then we moved onto one of RyuGin's signature dishes, the charcoal grilled Alfonsino covered with roasted rice. We had this same dish when the restaurant opened in Hong Kong about three years ago, and this time it was accompanied with a light teriyaki sauce that seemed a bit redundant, as the fish was cooked perfectly, the smooth taste of the fish contrasting with the crispiness of the roasted rice on top. Nevertheless, we savoured each bite.

The Japanese onsen tamago with marbled wagyu beef

Another favourite of the evening was the wagyu ribeye sukiyaki with onsen tamago. Thin slices of the prized marbled beef were placed in a bowl with some onions, leek and radish and a Japanese slow-cooked egg. When we poked the egg, a brilliant orange yolk burst out, and mixed together with the beef was a double protein dose that was divine. The egg white was silky soft and contrasted with the crunchy semi-cooked onion slices and pickled radish.

If that wasn't enough -- I was practically full at this point -- the main event came, Matsubagani crab, with a small dollop of the crab roe on top, on a bed of shiitake mushroom rice. Unfortunately the crab was also on the bland side despite the large chunk we were given, while the rice was delicate and hearty.

We had two desserts, the first one the signature hot and cold one. For the lunar new year, the flavour this time was mandarin orange, and we were presented a small bowl with one shiny golden orb with a small mint leaf on top.

Our mandarin orange dessert before it was smashed!

We had to break open the "fruit" to find very cold -- minus 196-degree powder packed inside before the server gave us two spoonfuls of 99-degree mandarin jam that we had to mix together with some pop rocks. The effect was very audible! We could hear the pop rocks zinging away in each others' mouths, while the hot and cold mandarin dessert was lots of fun to eat. However we both agreed we preferred the signature strawberry dessert we ate the first time.

Nevertheless, the second dessert was also delightful. After breaking a gorgeous perfect globe-shaped meringue shell that was light and crunchy, underneath was some almond ice cream with slightly sweet red beans and chopped strawberries. It was another play of textures and tastes in the mouth.

Another gorgeous dessert covered by a meringue shell

Overall we were very satisfied with the dinner, save for the few disappointing dishes. Service was impeccable and attentive. We came relatively early at 7pm, with the last table seated around 8.15pm. The outfits patrons wore ranged from hoodies to studded platform heels!

In a way RyuGin is one of those places where you can only go once because the dishes are not traditional kaiseki and are a memorable surprise. Also the dessert is so unforgetable the first time to be topped by successive ones.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the dining experience, and wish chef Sato all the best in his new endeavours!

RyuGin

101/F, ICC, 1 Austin Road West

Kowloon
2302 0222

www.ryugin.com.hk