Flavours of Peking

I am a great fan of Chinese food for the plain and simple reason of being Chinese. But Chinese food is much more than the lemon chicken, sweet and sour pork, chop suey and the countless variety of bastardised take-away noodles that mediocre Chinese restaurants and take-away joints the world over keep dishing out everyday.

There are both subtle and marked differences between the Cantonese, Sichuan and Hainan cuisines within the realms of Chinese food in general. Nuances of spice and bolder flavours dominate the cuisine of Northern China due to the primary need to keep warm in the colder climate.

One of my favourite dishes of northern China is Peking duck - where a whole roasted duck is skillfully sliced in front of diners and served with its crispy skin and a little meat, shallots, hoisin sauce wrapped in a wafer-thin Chinese pancakes.

Aromatic duck is a variation of Peking duck whereby the duck is marinated with 5-spice powder amongst other herbs and deep fried. The meat of the whole or half duck is then shredded and served in a similar manner as the Peking duck. The difference is the aromatic duck is deep fried, the smaller bones of the duck is very crispy and can be eaten together with the meat which has a fragrant flavour from the 5-spice powder, hence its name.

To me, one of the great pleasures of savouring northern Chinese cuisine is tasting the flavours of the Peking or aromatic duck with a subtle Pinot Noir. The slightly gamey flavour of the duck is a perfect complement to the jammy plumy sweet taste of a balanced pinot. Neither over-powers but supports the intensity of the other's strength - a marriage made in heaven!

On a cold winter night, one soup which I will always crave is the northern Chinese sweet and sour soup - a heart-warming concoction of thinly sliced Chinese fungus, water chestnut and mushrooms, soft tofu and prawns. It is the perfect starter to a hearty meal of Peking duck, lo-hon-chai (a Chinese vegetarian dish of braised snow peas, mushrooms and baby bok choy, Shan-tung chicken, steam fish and sizzling Mongolian beef.

Sydney, being in close proximity to Asia, has her fair share of world-class Chinese cuisine as a result of world-class chefs from all over Asia honing and plying their skills in the countless Chinese restaurants all over the city. Chinatown in Sydney is a vibrant melting pot of food, culture, cuisine and people at any time of the day. One will not be hard pressed to find great Chinese food in most restaurants in Chinatown and the city.

However, an emerging and heartening trend is being able to find an excellent variety Chinese food in so many neighbourhood suburbs around Sydney due to an increasing migration of Asians into Australia from all over South East Asia each year.

Being a food writer and reviewer, my wife has a discerning palate for all the different cuisines that is so readily available to Sydneysiders, be it Italian, French, modern Australian, Thai, Vietnamese, Greek, Indian, Spanish, Malaysian, Chinese, Japanase, Korean, South American and the list goes on. We are really a bunch of foodies spoilt for choice in a city which is so eager to showcase its versatility and high standards of food and service culture.

We went for dinner at a northern Chinese restaurant in one of the lower north shore suburbs recently and were just blown away by the quality and wide-ranging selection of northern Chinese cuisine.

Here are some photos of our escapade and we hope to return with more friends soon.