SMOKEHOUSE BREWS
There’s a big BBQ flavor cooking in Beijing’s Sanlitun as Jing A brings a little slice of the Lone Star State to the Chinese capital. Li Yingxue reports.
It’s 6 am. Barbecue chef Andrew Dilda is seasoning a piece of beef brisket with salt, pepper and Chinese red pepper before taking it into the smoker.
Twelve hours later, the sliced slow-smoked meat is served fresh with coleslaw, house pickles and grilled mantou (steamed buns).
The smoker Dilda uses looks smaller than the one he has back in his hometown of Dallas, Texas, in the United States.
“It’s unique,” he says. “The wall is thicker than we have in the US, and it works a little better.”
Far from his beloved Lone Star State, Dilda found himself busy in the kitchen of the Jing A Brewpub in the heart of Beijing’s Sanlitun in March.
Opened last October, Jing A Brewpub is the sister venue to nearby Jing A’s 1949 Taproom and serves up a selection of locally brewed craft beers and an all-new menu of authentic Texas BBQ.
Alex Acker, co-founder of Jing A, wants to bring a taste of his home state to Beijing, since
— perhaps unsurprisingly
— he has struggled to find any authentic Texas cuisine in the Chinese capital, which he notes “goes so well with craft beer”.
Dilda, who has been honing his skills with a smoker for more than 10 years, specializing in that world-famous Texas delicacy, beef brisket, was introduced to Acker two years ago when he was the executive chef at Independent Bar and Kitchen in Dallas.
Once he caught wind of Acker’s idea of bringing authentic Texas BBQ to Beijing through a mutual friend, Dilda, in true Texan style, was ready to saddle up and head east to spread his smoky gospel.
“When I first heard about this, it was a gamble,” explains Dilda. “I thought ‘we’ll see if this happens or not’.”
He and Acker opened lines of communication through email, Skype, FaceTime and WeChat to bring the idea to life — to bring Texas barbecue to China.
However, none of it was to come to fruition without a smoker, the most important ingredient to create that Texas taste. Dilda and Acker spent a long time at the drawing board working hard to design and make one for the new Brewpub.
In Texas, the smoker is often modified by a salvaged propane tank, because they’re easy to find and the thick steel holds and disperses the heat evenly.
It was difficult for Acker to find one in China, and then he faced the challenge of converting it into a working smoker.
“The design of the smoker is very much like brewing,” says Acker. “There is a real science to it.
“For example, the size of the opening between the fire box on the smoker will have a huge effect on the way the whole thing works.”
Dilda has also added a thermometer on the smoker so that cooks can constantly monitor the temperature.
It’s a Texas tradition that cooks name their smokers and that they get passed down to their sons and, in some cases, grandsons. Dilda and Acker bestowed the moniker “Xiaopangzi” (little fatty) on theirs, a nod to its unique short, round shape.
“It’s like a buddy to me,” says Dilda.
After a year’s discussions about the menu, followed by the design of the pub, Dilda flew to China for his first trip when the kitchen was completed last August.
“It didn’t really hit me until I was flying over,” he reminisces, “until we were approaching Beijing in the airplane and I could just see the city. That’s when I realized this was really happening.”
He met Acker for the first time when he walked out of the elevator in the lobby of his hotel in Beijing, and they spent two weeks familiarizing him with his Chinese team in the kitchen.
When he was back in US, like a loving parent, he would call to check up on his smoker and answer questions to keep the kitchen running smoothly.
By the end of 2017, Jing A Brewery won an editor’s choice award for both American cuisine and best pub food at the That’s Beijing Golden Fork Awards.
Dilda came back to Jing A Brewpub for the third time in February to launch a new brunch menu.
During his stay, he has also been exploring Chinese food — asking his colleagues in the kitchen to take him to try local breakfasts or finding regional cuisines to enjoy with his team after a day’s hard work in the kitchen.
From youtiao (fried bread sticks) and soy milk to sliced noodles from Shanxi province, Dilda has enjoyed all the food he tried and is planning to take some of the Chinese food and ingredients back to the US.
“I’m doing guest-chef takeovers in the kitchens of some breweries in Dallas, and I want to bring back the noodles from China,” says Dilda, who has taken pictures of the noodles’ preparations. He has also inspired his teammates to make a sausage with Sichuan peppers in a Texas-based charitable cooking competition called Meat Fight.
“What’s exciting for me coming from a culinary standpoint,” he concludes, “is to experience the food in China.”