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The Kong Yiji Restaurant, located by the Shichahai Lake in Beijing, is named after a pitiful intellectual in the novel Kong Yiji, written by Lu Xun, a renowned writer in the history of contemporary Chinese literature.
The restaurant mainly offers Hangzhou dishes as well as snacks with Shaoxing flavors. Since its establishment three years ago, it has been praised by an increasing number of customers, and is often fully booked in the evenings. Every weekend, in particular, it is crowded with customers wanting to get together with friends and relatives. Those who arrive late have to wait until others have finished their dinner.
Hangzhou dishes are typical representatives of South China's cuisine, which tastes both fresh and delicate. Due to the geographic differences between North and South China, the freshest ingredients as well as the most experienced chefs are needed to cook fine Hangzhou dishes in Beijing. For this reason, these dishes are usually expensive in the city. The Kong Yiji Restaurant, however, not only offers dishes that are reasonably priced, taste fresh, and are cooked just right, but also offer a tasteful dining environment with the elegant touch of South China. When enjoying palate-pleasing dishes here, customers may feel as if they are in a tavern in South China.
All the furniture in the restaurant is antique, and it is accompanied by tablecloths dyed with blue flowers, cushions, bamboo chopsticks, and white-and-blue porcelain tableware produced only in South China. The waiters here all wear traditional, Chinese-style jackets, while waitresses wear shirts and kerchiefs, both dyed with blue flowers. Calligraphic works and paintings are hung on the walls, and orchids and chrysanthemums are planted in white-and-blue porcelain flowerpots. Earthen jugs painted with flying Apsaras, which are filled with high-grade Shaoxing rice wine, as well as various porcelain ware are placed on a long, narrow table. Above the table is a traditional Chinese painting that depicts Kong Yiji standing in front of the Xianheng Tavern, drinking Shaoxing rice wine and eating beans flavored with aniseed.
Shaoxing rice wine is a must for customers dining at the restaurant. Strong rice wine is scooped out of the jugs and then warmed in special-made flagons, sending forth a strong aroma. After drinking a bottle of this wine, those who are lovers of literature may want to write down poems or draw paintings, praising the beautiful scenery of Shichahai Lake which can be seen from the window, just like ancient scholars did.
Owing to its unique, cultural ambience and fine, reasonably priced dishes, the Kong Yiji Restaurant has become famous around Beijing.
(China Pictorial May 16, 2003)
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