Life In China Food Restaurant Reviews: Ba Guo Bu Yi

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Worker's Paradise: Sichuan Eatery Suits Plebeian Palate

In the more than 2,000-year evolution of Chinese cuisine, four main branches emerged: Guangzhou, Hunan, Sichuan, and Jiangsu.

Sichuan (aka Szechuan) cuisine earned the distinction of becoming the first popular branch. Sichuan's savory cuisine is known all throughout China, as is reflected by the saying "China is paradise for eating. Sichuan is paradise for flavor."

Ba Guo Bu Yi claims to carry on this heritage of Sichuan cuisine - blending a high-cuisine pedigree with a plebeian sensibility. The last two characters in the restaurant's name, in fact, literally mean "cloth gown." As the commoner's garb in traditional China, "cloth gown" came to refer to commoners in general.

Founded in 1996 in Chengdu, Ba Guo Bu Yi has restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing. Plans to open branches in Thailand, France and the US are also under way.

The motif of ordinary life, Ba Guo Bu Yi's trademark, is exhibited by the restaurant's carefully appointed decorations. Upon entering, an antique mill, lattice windows, wooden beams and lamps, dyed cloth drapes, and rows of dried chili peppers and corn, instantly transport one to a rustic Sichuan village. The walls are adorned with black-and-white photographs of Sichuan's villages, mountains and rivers, taken by professional photographers. The decorations are intended to convey the traditional values and aesthetics of an ordinary Sichuan household: simplicity, warmth, propriety and community.

Sichuan cuisine is known not only, of course, for its spicy dishes, but also for dishes featuring snake, turtle, rabbit, pigeon, eel, bullfrog and tripe. If you are not new to China, you may find yourself in a rut - ordering the same old Sichuan dishes, such as spicy diced chicken with peanuts (gongbao jiding ).

Ba Guo Bu Yi is an ideal place to try substituting bullfrog for the chicken (gong bao niu wa ). Likewise, instead of ordering the hackneyed sliced pork in spicy sauce (yuxiang rousi), why don't you give eel a shot:

Eel slices in spicy sauce (yuxiang shanpian )? One of Ba Guo Bu Yi's unique dishes is, don't squirm, tripe quick-fried on a bed of Three Gorge's stones (sanxiashi bao cuichang ). When the tripe, mixed with a colorful array of hot peppers, is poured onto a steel pan with charcoal-hot stones, the dish sizzles right on your table.

Strongly recommended and certain to suit a Western palate are the mildly hot and heavenly tender braised beef with chili peppers and cucumber (paojiao huanggua hui niurou ), the mild but flavorful celery with cashew nuts (yaoguo xiqin ), and the steamed corn muffins (yumi gao ). Other house specialties include sweet glutinous rice with red beanpaste and bacon (tian shaomai ) and medicinal soups, such as suckling pigeon soup with Chinese caterpillar fungus [a Chinese medicine aka Cordyceps sinensis] (chongcao ruge tang ) and stewed turtle with caterpillar fungus (chongcao dun jiayu).

You can also find the standard Sichuan dishes, such as beef boiled in hot pepper broth (shuizhu niurou ), Twice-cooked pork (baguo huiguo rou ), sliced pork in spicy sauce (yuxiang rousi), eggplant in spicy sauce (yuxiang qiezi) and deep-fried chicken buried in a heaping pile of chili peppers (lazi ji ). The prices are not entirely plebeian, but one can expect to dine in Ba Guo Bu Yi's downhome atmosphere for about 80
yuan per person.

Ba Guo Bu Yi is located in Xizhimen next to the Beijing Youth Palace at No. 68 Nanxiao Road.

Tel: 010-66152230