Scenes from a Chinese banquet
Moutai, networking and Shandong chefs create dazzling affair
Right around my second helping of jellyfish in vinegar sauce, I gave up trying to take notes. There was too much going on around me at the Sunday-night dinner hosted by Chinese Consul General Li Qiangmin at his residence near the Medical Center.
To my right, a server deposited a clear broth swimming with small white poufs that resembled underwater clouds. At my left elbow, a fellow banqueter from another table stood tilting a tiny glass of Moutai, the celebrated fermented sorghum spirit, in my direction. Suddenly it dawned: I was being invited to toast! I lurched to my feet a little too late, I toasted, I cautiously sipped the potent Moutai, my eyes widening at its fragrant, shivery burn.
I think I gasped a little, to the amusement of the construction executive seated next to me, John Liu. “You should try ‘bottoms up,’ ” he teased me. We were among six dozen or so guests at one of seven big tables centered with lazy Susans, a mixed group of consular officials, Chinese businessmen from the Mainland and abroad, and Americans drawn from business, local government
and media circles.
It was a gathering made for networking, and after the energetic Li Qiangmin had made welcoming remarks, expressing solidarity in the face of Hurricane Harvey, the exchange of business cards began in earnest.
I had neglected to bring mine: the first of several etiquette missteps I figure I made over the course of the evening.
All around me, in pairs and threesomes and chatting quartets, a musical chairs of toasting was in progress. Behind the scenes of the golden, gleaming reception hall, a team of decorated chefs from Shandong Province was sending out course after course of their regional specialties.
I made a final, desperate swipe of my chopsticks toward the last remaining amber frill of jellyfish on my plate, crunchy and tart and delicate, then surrendered to the tide of activity that had me in its grip. “Toasting, toasting, toasting,” were the last words scrawled in my notebook.
The highly social aspect of a Chinese banquet was eye-opening. Formal American dinners seem static in comparison: Guests mingle beforehand at a cocktail hour, then sit for the whole meal, with some minimal table-hopping.
As the decibel level rose and I surrendered my habitual food writer’s concentration on each dish, I felt small stirrings of panic, however. How was I going to remember it all, to fold each morsel into the menu in my brain?
As one unaccustomed preparation after another ensued, I was struck anew by how much of China’s vast culinary repertoire remains unknown to Houston diners. Even with our vast Chinatown, sprawling along Bellaire Boulevard from Sharpstown through Alief and beyond — even with an increasing number of regional Chinese cuisines represented along that corridor — most menus spring largely from a familiar canon. Even during a short layover in Hong Kong last year, I was staggered at the wealth of choices at every restaurant turn.
Shandong, the birthplace of Confucian thought, is a coastal province south of Beijing that was once a center of the salt trade. Its cuisine tends to be lightly salty and fresh-tasting, long on seafood, soft longsimmered or crisp-fried textures and various clear or milky broths.
One such was the slow-cooked matsutake chicken soup in Confucius House Cuisine style that opened the hot courses. It looked unassuming. Those cloud-like fluffs that had captivated me turned out to be neither egg whites nor soft tofu but puréed chicken breast transfigured by the hot chicken broth. The clear, earthy tinge of dried matsutake mushroom added a note of luxury.
It all added up to one of those little nothings that turn out to be everything.
“That’s not Salisbury steak!” Gene Wu informed me as I studied the next hot dish set before me. The state representative from southwest Houston was on the move from his seat at the head table, where he was seated with his wife, Channel 13 reporter Miya Shay.
With its glossy, walnut-brown sauce, the Roasted Stewed Beef Tenderloin may have resembled the chopped steak classic of American steam tables, but lo: The texture of the chopped beef was light and graceful, mined with crunchy nubs of what I guessed might be water chestnut. I loved its soft understatement, and the Silverado cabernet that was being poured all evening did the dish justice.
Next came pan-fried dumplings with deep-toned mushroom filling and a brittle filigree of lacy crust that extended beyond the wrapper borders. There were airy little prawn spheres in another clear broth. Last of the main-course showpieces was something I had never imagined, a filet of satiny steamed fish athwart “Smashed Pork,” as the menu put it: really more of a coarse pork terrine that turned the dish into the essence of umami.
A festive golden bean cake stamped with a Chinese character led me to believe it was time for dessert. Not exactly. The next course of sautéed Chinese broccoli proved to be my favorite of the evening, thanks to the unexpected “ma” tingle of Szechuan peppercorn in its garnish of shiitake mushrooms. So simple; so much happening.
Finally appeared yet another soup of springy, long-cut wonton noodles in a thickish golden chicken broth. I loved the idea of soup as a next-to-last palate cleanser after a complex meal, an ever-so-gentle coming back to earth.
There were fancy cut fruits to finish, amid a final flurry of table-hopping, and then the team of eight touring chefs — led by Ping Wang, food and beverage director of the Shandong Hotel in Jinan, the provincial capital — marched out in their tall white toques to accept applause and pose for photos.
I’ll be thinking about the dinner they served for a long time. That Chinese menu in my brain? It’s getting bigger. With any luck, that will never stop.