GuangZhou Cuisine

This week's focus will be GuangZhou cuisine (also called Canton Cuisine). As one of the Chinese cuisine in the eight subdivisions of all Chinese food, GuangZhou cuisine originated from GuangDong, it is famous for the large amount of varieties and the freshness of the food.

In comparison to other Chinese cooking, rather than uses spices and herbs, it focuses mainly on 8 main ingredients:

• salt, sugar, ginger, green onion, soya sauce, rice wine, corn starch, and oil

Its focus lies not on the strong flavors, but the texture and taste from the 8 main ingredients listed above.You will rarely see dishes that are filled with red chili peppers like in SzeChuan cuisine I talked about before, because of the moderate climate of GuangZhou, it allows for many different kinds of crops to be grown, hence it allows for a lot more variety in the choice of the main ingredients.

Aside from the main ingredients of beef, chicken, and pork, chefs often use other animals like pigeons and snakes. It is said that snake meat can help keep warmth during the winter time, which is why it is often made into a soup for endure the cold winter nights.

Within GuangZhou cuisine, it is also very popular to use dried ingredients to compliment the dish for the extra kick in the flavors, like preserved eggs and dries shrimps. However, some of these dried ingredients are even used as the main dish, like shark fin (made into Shark Fin Soup), swallow's nest (made into a dessert).

In a typical full menu, you could expect a soup, cold dishes as appetizers, a meat dish (mainly steamed/deep fried chicken), a sea food dish (mainly steamed fish), and lastly dessert.

There is are a lot of emphasis on the soup, as it marks the beginning of the meal. A well made soup is very important, it usually would be boiled in a big pot for hours before serving, to ensure the flavors of all of the ingredients are drawn out. The main ingredient in soups are usually chicken and pork, because they carry the richest flavor that will not overwhelm the other ingredients.

Here are two websites that provide good information for tourists on Guang Zhou cuisine:

Guang Dong Cuisine

Guang Dong Cuisine Family

For this week's restaurant of choice, I had picked out "Golden Times Chinese Cuisine" located in Richmond Hill. There are a number of things you have to try, one of my special recommendation is their deep fried chicken (served with shrimp chips), the chicken is juicy and tender, and the skin is thin, unlike the ones you would eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken where it looks extremely fattening and unhealthy. The restaurant is more expensive than other places, but you're paying for quality food.

*trust me, it's way better than KFC :)

Quality: 5/5

Price: 3/5

Service: 4/5

Overall: 4/5

Golden Times Chinese Cuisine

550 Hwy 7 East (Times Square) Unit 280

Richmond Hill, ON

L4B 3Z4

(905) 707-8333