Full coverage: G20 Hangzhou Summit

Many of the Chinese dishes we just saw have names adopted from folklore, legend or story. This is very different than in the West, where you would never see something like “Edgar Alan Po Pork Belly” or Shakespeare Shrimp on a menu.

But speaking of writers, one of Hangzhou’s signature dishes is named after a very famous writer and poet of the Song dynasty. We mentioned him earlier, a Causeway is named after him on the West Lake. Su Shi, or Su Dongpo.

The story of how this dish was created goes like this: Su Dongpo, who is as much a foodie as he is a literati, was in the middle of stewing pork when a friend came to visit and challenged him to a game of Chinese chess. He totally forgot about his pork stew, which had now become a thick-cooked, until the fragrant smell reminded him of it.

Another dish you probably won’t see on an English menu is called Beggar’s Chicken. Doesn’t sound too appealing does it? But’s really yummy and takes 6 hours to prepare. It’s a stuffed chicken wrapped in clay and roasted.

During Qing Dynasty a hungry beggar stole a chicken from a farm, and when the farmer found out he chased the beggar down to the riverbank. But the beggar hid his chicken in mud. Later in the evening, he returns to the river and starts a fire. He roasts the mud-covered over the flame. When it was done, the mud cracked open and all the feathers fell off too revealing a aromatic tender chicken!

I’m a big fan of Hangzhou cuisine. It’s as light, delicate and retains the natural flavor of the ingredients. It’s got a little sweetness to it but not as sweet as Shanghai dishes. and Speaking of sweet, one of my favorite Hangzhou dishes is the Squirrel Fish. And that’s the last dish I had at airport before our family moved to the US.

It’s mixture of sweet and sour the closest thing that I can think of is Sweet and Sour chicken, but unlike Sweet and Sour Chicken, the texture of the fish is just so moist on the inside but still crispy on the outside, and with the sweet sour sauce, and pine nuts topped over it. It’s just got so many LAYERS of flavor that a bowl of rice is all you need to accompany it.

And if you like sweet and sour, there’s a another famous Hangzhou fish dish, it’s literally called West Lake Fish in Sweet and Sour Sauce. It’s simply grass carp from the West Lake boiled in water and then topped off with a sugar and vinegar sauce. And it has a great legend behind it. I’m not gonna tell you what it is now, but the morality of the story is that “Life has both sweet and sour moments, and if you stick through the bitter times, the sweet moments will come eventually.”