A Real Taste of Yunnan by Brent Hannon

Lugu Lake is a wonderfully scenic spot, a radiant sheet of water ringed by Tibetan stupas and framed by tall brooding mountains. On the night we visited, a fat round harvest moon hovered over the dark peaks of distant Sichuan province, sending long contrails of silver light dancing across the rippled surface of the lake.

But was Robin Yin admiring these soulful views? No, he was not. Robin was in the cramped kitchen of a lakeside eatery, standing over a blazing wok, stir-frying some yak meat. Robin didn’t travel all the way from Shanghai to Lugu Lake, in the far northwest of Yunnan province, to admire the scenery, however spectacular. He was looking for ideas—for herbs, ingredients, spices, techniques, flavors, anything at all—for Lost Heaven, his Yunnanese restaurant in Shanghai. “Where else can you get fresh yak meat?” he asked, before disappearing into the kitchen.

Before long Robin’s yak emerged, piping hot, stir-fried with scallions, ginger, garlic, and a handful of freshly ground Sichuan peppers, or hua jiao. It was delicious: lean, resilient, and juicy. “Ahh,” said Robin. “This is just the way we make it in Lost Heaven.”

After the yak, we devoured more local specialties. There was yang jiao hua, or sheep-horn flower, a one-of-a-kind green vegetable, crisp and tender, plucked at the peak of ripeness. The flavor was fantastic, with garlic and chili and a hint of fennel, some fermented beans, and a sprinkling of pork that added a layer of unctuous richness. And on it went: pan-fried fish fresh from Lugu Lake; shan yao, a long, thin, snake-like tuber with a unique soapy texture; and freshwater clams cooked with spicy-sour yan cai (“salt vegetable”), a pickled condiment that is one of the hallmarks of Yunnanese cuisine.

Then, at last, a hot plateful of zhu biao rou arrived at our table. This is a sort of prosciutto made by the local Mosuo and Pumi minorities: a whole pig that is deboned, then salted, then pressed for many days, a process that drives out the water and prevents the meat from spoiling. We had waited a long time for this dish. In fact, it was one of the reasons we had traveled all the way to Lugu Lake, a rough five-hour drive from Lijiang.

With mounting excitement, we tucked in. And then… oof. The zhu biao rou was—there’s no way to sugarcoat this—it was awful. The preserved pork was tough and gamey, with an odd, punky flavor. I looked at Robin. “They should boil it with ginger first to remove this taste, and then deep fry it,” he said. He returned to the kitchen, and soon the zhu biao rou was back, this time deep-fried. It was better, but still not good—at least, not good enough for Lost Heaven. “If you are not used to this dish, you can’t stand the fragrance,” Robin said. By “fragrance,” or xiang, he meant the essence of the dish, the combined experience of smell, taste, and texture.

So the zhu biao rou was a disappointment, but what about the sheep-horn flower? That was delicious. Will Robin serve those in Lost Heaven? Again, the answer was no; the exotic little vegetable can’t be found in Shanghai, nor can it be shipped there, because it wouldn’t stay fresh.

That’s the way it is with Robin Yin. He’ll try anything new or different, but the bar is set pretty high. To make it to Lost Heaven, one of Shanghai’s top restaurants, the culinary discovery must have exceptional flavor or texture, and it must be readily available, whether fresh, dried, or pickled.

This was not Robin’s first food-finding tour of Yunnan; four times he has crisscrossed the province, logging more than 20,000 kilometers in a never-ending search for lost flavors, exotic ingredients, forgotten herbs and spices, and home-style preparations. Such pilgrimages aren’t strictly necessary; many Yunnanese restaurants simply serve tried-and-true Yunnan-Chinese dishes like clay-pot chicken and “crossing the bridge” noodles, along with a few ethnic tidbits like jizong mushrooms, which are used in stir-fries, and rubbing, a goat’s-milk cheese that is fried and served as an appetizer.

But Robin isn’t interested in re-creating the province’s Chinese dishes. His passion is for tribal flavors and exotic local ingredients. Without these native elements, Yunnanese cuisine would be overwhelmed by the dominant Han Chinese cuisine, and by the flavor preferences of its neighbours. And food-wise, Yunnan has very powerful neighbors: Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, and Sichuan province.

Modern Yunnanese cuisine is broadly based on Han Chinese cookery, with its signature flavors of scallion, ginger, soy, and garlic, and its reliance on steaming and stir-frying. It also gets a spicy jolt from the chili peppers and hua jiao of Sichuan, while the southern dishes feature coconut milk, curry, lemon grass and other Thai and Burmese influences. Finally, as in all poorer parts of China – think Hakka food, for instance – pickling is popular, and preserved or fermented beans, onions, cabbages, and other vegetables add their pungent flavors to the province’s kitchens.

But blessed Yunnan holds a pair of culinary aces that elevate its cuisine into a stratosphere of its own. One is ethnic diversity, and the other is the fertility of the land. Yunnan is a tremendously rich province, a sun-drenched subtropical paradise with fine soil and plentiful summer rains, a horn of plenty that bursts forth with a crazy abundance of crops and edible plants. And living on this fruitful land, as they have for centuries, are the ethnic minorities. Officially, there are 26 nationalities in Yunnan, but in reality, there are many, many more.

In the forests and fields of Yunnan, the natives have discovered a natural bounty of mushrooms, lichens, herbs, spices, tubers, legumes, and edible flowers, many of them unique to the province. The sheep-horn flower that we enjoyed so much at Lugu Lake was one of these discoveries, and so was the shan yao. That is Robin’s ongoing mission: to find these rare or forgotten items, and figure out how to cook them.

Our trip had begun in Kunming, the provincial capital, and from there we drove to Dali, Lijiang, and Lugu Lake. As we cruised along the highway to Dali, I had plenty of time to admire the crops: patches of squash and pumpkin, rows of sunflowers, yellow-green paddies of rice, and fields of ripe corn. A huge variety of fruits and vegetables flourished in the rich red earth: bananas, peppers, plums, apples, oranges, pomelos, potatoes, tomatoes, soybeans. Name almost any crop, and it was out there somewhere.

Dali, which we reached before sundown, is a pleasant town, surrounded by mountains and filled with streams that bubble and trickle down roadside channels. Its cobbled streets offer an appealing mix of ethnic tribes and local street life, plus a selection of bookstores, cafés, and souvenir shops. But we were not in Dali to poke around its tourist haunts. Robin had an agenda, and that meant a visit to the farmer’s market.

It was there that I developed a deeper appreciation for the difficulty of Robin’s mission. The Dali market was a giant outdoor sprawl of culinary marvels. In sacks, in buckets, in boxes, in trucks, on bikes, on the ground, and stacked against the walls, was a staggering array of vegetables, fruits, nuts, herbs, spices, pickles, and fermented sauces. I couldn’t begin to list them all, or even identify them. Robin, however, already knew most of the items, even the exotics. “That one is hui xiang [a kind of local fennel], that one is mo li hua [jasmine], and that one is jin que hua [golden sparrow flower],” he said. “You can cook the jin que hua with eggs, chicken, or tofu, but it has to be fresh.” We saw lots of pickled vegetables, and many clay pots filled with pungent red sauce. Those sauces, called Dali dou ban jiang, are fermented mixtures of bean, chili, hua jiao pepper, and sugar that are widely used in local kitchens. Robin dipped and tasted, took some samples, and asked a lot of questions.

When Robin wanted to know about something, he just asked. Robin, whom I’ve known for years, has a friendly personality and plenty of charm, a combination that always works in China. Because of his background—he was born in Myanmar to Han Chinese parents, and raised in Taiwan—he speaks several Asian languages, and his pan-Asian features help him to blend in just about anywhere. Whatever the reason, people always warmed to him.

Like when we stopped at the mushroom stand, for example. Yunnan has more than 50 species of edible mushroom, and this stall had about 15 of them, arrayed in buckets along the road. One in particular caught Robin’s eye: a type of lichen with vivid stripes of gray, green, and black. Soon Robin was chatting away with the vendor. What is this one called? How is it cooked? How much does it cost? The fungus, we were told, goes by three names: tree skin (shu pi), frog skin (qing wa pi), and butterfly vegetable (hu die cai). The local Bai people peel it from trees in the nearby mountains, it costs seven yuan (about one U.S. dollar) for 600 grams, and it is used in stir-fries, where it adds both texture and flavor. And so on.

The next morning, we drove west toward Lijiang. It was autumn, and the rice harvest was in full swing. With Robin’s help, I tried to identify some of the ethnic groups working in the fields. The Bai wore white-and-blue floral patterns, the Yi seemed to prefer green highlights and scarlet scarves, and the Naxi had broad blue hats. Food-wise, said Robin, the most important tribes in Yunnan are the Dai, who live near Myanmar, and the Bai and the Yi, who make their homes near Dali and Lijiang.

Food-finding trip that it was, we soon stopped at Wen Chuen Shan Zuan, a charming country restaurant that serves genuine folk cuisine to go with its peaceful views of Yunnan’s trademark rice paddies and corn fields. We waited patiently while Robin ordered, a process that always involved a thorough examination of the menu, many questions, and a trip or two into the kitchen.

Eventually another feast unfolded: hui shan chao dan, a green-hued omelet made from hui shan [a local plant related to dill] flowers and chicken eggs; whole minnows deep-fried with Sichuan pepper; stir-fried yu tou stalks; and hong shao (“red-cooked”) pork stewed in that rich, red sauce we had seen fermenting in clay pots in the Dali market. The minnows were exceptional, delivering a taste bud–tingling jolt of salt, spice, and sesame. Robin also liked the yu tou, a crunchy vegetable that sparkled with just-picked freshness. “I would love to serve this in Shanghai, but I just can’t find it there,” he said.

There were other dishes, but I soon stopped keeping track and simply enjoyed the food. I do recall a plate of bai yun dou, or white cloud beans, which stood out because cooked whole beans almost never appear in Han Chinese cuisine. Some of the dishes also featured green hua jiao, a resinous, piney, and more potent version of the ever-popular red Sichuan pepper. But the real kicker was the bill: all those dishes, plus a few bottles of Snow-brand beer and a pot of Pu’er tea, cost less than US$12.

Sated and happy, we drove to Lijiang, where we spent the afternoon poking around the ancient houses and snowmelt-fed canals of its World Heritage-listed Old Town. In the evening, we walked into the cool mountain air to see the Naxi Orchestra, a collection of elderly musicians who play classical Chinese pieces. The songs were beautiful and evocative, and it was a treat to hear the minor keys and lilting melodies of these centuries-old compositions. It was our first, and only, genuine tourist excursion.

The next morning we set off for Lugu Lake, where the zhu biao rou would so dramatically fail to impress, and from there we made our way to the tiny village of Shaxi, a 10-hour trip along narrow dirt roads that were scary but beautiful, with endless views of the cloud-capped mountains, piled one atop another, like a Song dynasty landscape painting.

Few modern visitors make it to Shaxi, but in the old days, this was a key outpost on the Tea Horse Trail, an ancient trade route that once hummed with activity. Tea and copper moved along this rocky path from Myanmar and southern Yunnan into Tibet, while horses and furs flowed back over the mountains from Tibet into China.

Today, Shaxi is mostly abandoned, and its once-grand central square and graceful Qing-era roads and bridges are calm and quiet. The ethnic tribes are still here, of course, foraging in the hills and selling their produce on the streets. One vendor displayed a box of handpicked song rong, a thick, meaty mushroom that is prized by cooks in many countries—in Japan it is known as matsutake. This is one of the most expensive ingredients in Yunnan cuisine; even out here, in distant Shaxi, the song rong sold for 200 yuan (US$30) for 600 grams, a small fortune for the lucky mushroom hunter.

We spent the night in Duan’s Temple Guesthouse, a rustic, 150-year old temple now run as a small hotel, and the next morning Robin was at it again, disappearing into the kitchen while I sipped tea in the courtyard. And sure enough, another curious dish soon appeared: a deep-fried root called di shen<>. “This is a very special local food, only found around Shaxi. People come from all over Yunnan to try it,” Robin said.

The root was cooked with a little salt and no other seasoning, to enhance the flavor. And that flavor was … almost nothing. This was a pure texture food, prized for its sharp crackly snap, rather than its taste. Robin was not sure how the root would go over in Lost Heaven, but he was intrigued: “A little salty, a little sweet … customers might like it.”

From Shaxi we drove the six hours back to Kunming, and the following morning we strapped on our seatbelts once again and drove another four hours, this time to a small town called Shi Ping, in the flatlands of central Yunnan. As it turned out, every last kilometer was worth it, thanks to Shi Ping’s sole claim to fame: tofu. Such claims to fame are common in China, and travelers learn to be wary of them, but the tofu in Shi Ping lived up to its hype—it was flat-out spectacular, with a wow factor seldom associated with this humble food.

In a courthouse restaurant in downtown Shi Ping, we were treated to a remarkable parade of tofu dishes, all of them mild, perfect, and variously textured, without any of the bitter or grassy notes of ordinary tofu. There was lychee tofu, xue hua (snowflake) tofu made from leftover curds, kao (roasted) tofu, and many more, all bearing the characteristic sweet taste of the Shi Ping tofu, a sweetness that comes from the local well water. This was a special sitting, in a government-owned restaurant that only opens for honored guests. That would be Robin; I was just along for the ride.

In all we tried about 10 tofu dishes—a meager sampling considering that the kitchen can turn out more than 100. The highlight might have been the dofu yuanzi tang, or tofu ball soup, which had the silky-smooth texture so prized by Chinese diners. Or maybe it was the lychee tofu, with its resilient skin and velvety interior. It was hard to choose a favorite; they were all delicious and different. “Beautiful, these dishes,” said Robin, admiring the array of tofu. “The eating culture is very high here. Shi Ping is such a small town, but the food is so good, even better than in Shanghai.”

I had never seen Robin so excited about a meal. Soon some rice wine and beer appeared, and an impromptu party sprang up, complete with toasts, jokes, light-hearted banter, and more praise for the kitchen. “I will bring the Shi Ping tofu and the chef to Shanghai,” Robin vowed. Our Shi Ping detour was an absolute success, a blazing highlight.

And that was the end of the trip, except for a culminating visit to Lost Heaven itself, back home in Shanghai. Here, in the restaurant’s deep, warm embrace, amid soft lighting, Miao paintings, and a five-meter wall made of pressed blocks of Pu’er tea, Yunnan seemed very far away—until the food arrived.

The Dali-style chicken, served with that town’s signature red sauce and pickled vegetables, was instantly evocative, as was a dish of ground beef and resinous liu yeh, or willow leaves. There were exotic mushrooms, Burmese-style curries, tea salads, and steamed fish, each one popping with the characteristic freshness and flavors of Yunnan folk cuisine. It was a culinary journey along the Tea Horse Trail, from Myanmar to Lugu Lake, and it felt like a return trip to China’s fertile southwest. Everyone should be so lucky.