Dong Shan

> Location : Shunde, Gaungdong, Mainland China
> Cuisine : Specializing in Lamb
> Tel. # : (86) 0757-28869594
> Website : N/A

Simon, did you quit on Hong Kong reviews? haha. Don't worry! Been visiting Shunde and Guangzhou a lot lately so that's why I have so many reviews from there! This time, I'm writing a review I would say by far one of my favorite restaurant in Shunde! The place is called Dong Shan. The name is actually an island on the southeastern portion of Mainland China. The main purpose of this place is to eat lamb! Yes, another lamb specialty restaurant! This is the place my father was speaking of that is very good if you read my other review. I'll tell you before I even get into this, go to this place! It is a must. Just that good!

Like a lot of the lamb speciality restaurants in Shunde, the primary sauce is a mixture of fermented bean curd, sesame oil and chili. There's a stove in the middle of each table for any lamb dishes that is good by hotpotting. Dong Shan is fairly big with about 15-20 private rooms you can reserve anytime. The environment is bright, clean and the service is good overall. Food wise, there are certain lamb parts that needs to be reserved early if you want to have a chance to eat it! lamb, tail and tongue are amount are some of the few things that needs to be reserved ahead of time.

So what did I had? First up, braised lamb meat with taro. This dish is absolutely amazing. In a semi-thick sauce that has a sweet and somewhat salty taste and topping it off with cilantro garnish, green onions and crushed peanuts. The lamb is so tasty with the sauce and is so tender. The taro is firm which is good for this dish because it is not a pot style dish. What I mean by this is, the taro won't break easily which convolutes the lamb meat which is the highlight of the experience. So hard to say anything else but it's just that good! One of those things that is great with rice definitely.

Dong Shan goat is the next dish. Or the literal translation would mean, eastern mountain goat. As we discussed in the beginning, Dong Shan is an island/place in the southeastern portion of China. As you can guess, the goat meat is directly from Dong Shan. The dish is basically steamed/boiled. There really isn't anything added to it. The main purpose of this dish is to savor the flavor of Dong Shan goat meat. On the side, a soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, cilantro, green onion base sauce is provided for this. The skin texture is a little sticky, the skin is light brown. The meat is a a little chewy yet tender and the dish is served slightly warm. Definitely a good delicacy to try! Recommended.

lamb stomach area meat is next. This course is hotpotted. After letting it boil a little bit, I took a piece, put it in my mouth and guess what? Like the last two dishes, good again! The meat was tender and goes well with the fermented bean curd sauce. The sauce that is cooked in is mildly salty so it is best with the bean curd sauce. Overall, another good dish.

Last but not least, roasted lamb on a wooden skewer. The meat is slightly crispy and tender. The meat is marinaded with "lam yui" fermented bean curd. Due to the nature of this bean curd, the flavor of the meat has a unique hint of sweetness. It is not too salty which is good. Overall, a very simple dish yet done nicely!

For just $10 to $80 R.M.B. for each dish on the menu, with most of the main dishes ranging around $15-30 each, you can tell how cheap it is. That is the greatness of a lot of restaurants in Shunde! Cheap and good. Dong Shan is a great restaurant to visit if you're ever in Shunde. I've been to this place twice and I can tell you, consistently excellent. Sometimes people run into restaurants where a dish can be good one day and bad on the other. With Dong Shan, this is not the case and even if the 'touch' is a little off, I bet it is still considered great to a lot of eaters!

< 4 1/2 out of 5 >

Yang Jiaz Huang

> Location : Shunde, Guangdong, Mainland China
> Cuisine : Shunde style lamb
> Tel. # : (86) 0757-22661191
> Website : N/A

Specialty restaurants are always quite interesting. They are designed to use a certain type of ingredients throughout every dish. A good example would be The Stinking Rose located in Beverly Hills, California. Pretty much every dish in this restaurant is emphasized with garlic even in its ice cream! So what is Yang Jiaz Huang's specialty? Lamb! In Shun De, there are a few of these seasonal restaurants that only serves lamb dishes. Seasonal as of in they open starting around mid September to early October because this is when lamb is fresh into the market. Yang Jiaz Huang is the first to open this season so I had to give it a try!

Yang Jiaz Huang is a big place with many private seating rooms. In each room, the center of the table has a portable stove to place a pot for hot potting your lamb and other dishes. For each individual, two small dipping sauces are given. The first comes with fermented bean curd, chili sauce and about a few teaspoons of oil. You need to mix it together in order to use it. The second sauce is vinegar base with green onions, sesame oil and cilantro. Both sauces are used according to your own preferences but usually the vinegar base one is for dishes that lack sauces like an eastern mountain lamb dish I will be talking about later.

The first thing to start off with is lamb hotpot style. Decent quality of lamb. Using the fermented bean curd sauce is best with this dish. The taste is define but is best if you rely on the bean curd sauce. Since it is hotpot after all, a lot of adding and subtracting from the hot is occurring, so dip accordingly. Quality wise, according to my father who is experienced with eating these lamb specialty restaurants here in Shun De, it is decent but not the best. There are various types of vegetables you get to choose from to hotpot, ranging from lettuce to chinese squash to many others. All were very fresh and nothing to complain about. It is always nice to order some vegetables to balance the meal since there is so much meat!

The next dish is a lettuce base, marinaded lamb with green onions and crushed peanuts on top. Texture wise, it was slightly sticky. It held a slightly define taste and not too salty. It was decent overall and goes well with the bean curd sauce again. What do Simon mean by define? Again let me explain what I mean by define if you haven't read my other reviews before. When I say define, that means throughout the first bite up to swallowing, you can savor a unique taste or combination of tastes. So, basically not something that you eat and cannot hold a memory in your head. Also, depending on the cuisine, this word can vary.

Last by not least, I want to share with you my favorite dish. In literal translation, this dish is called eastern mountain lamb. From the name, you can easily guess that it is lamb from the eastern mountains in China. The dish is served pretty much steamed (but left out to cool a bit first) but alone without sauce, it held a definite define taste of lamb which indicates its freshness. This dish in particular goes well with the vinegar base sauce because of the lack of sauce when it is cooked. The concept here is very much like "lo shui" dishes using a vinegar base sauce for dipping. Traditionally, a lot of little sauce or no sauce cold Chinese dishes that requires dipping goes well with vinegar base sauces because vinegar heightens the taste of the core ingredients of the dish. In our case, the lamb. Therefore, this is a delicate lamb experience where the prime activity is not to savor a dish's sauce + core ingredient + extra ingredients but to taste one core ingredient only, heighten through vinegar, and lamb meat sensation in all its glory!

A dish like the above is a true example of how eaters these days are swayed away from the quality, freshness and taste of a dishes core ingredient. Through fancy sauces and decorations, it covers up the quality of the meat (for example) and make us forget what is important. A true Chinese food fanatic would consider freshness of the core ingredients of the dish according to the ingredient's respective seasonal growth and regional freshness. Say for example, taro and lamb is a seasonal product and does very well starting around September and chicken in Hong Kong aren't as tasty and fresh compared to Mainland China.

Anyways, getting back on track, Yang Jiaz Huang is a overall decent place. Being the earliest to open out of all the lamb specialty restaurants in Shun De, the quality of the lamb would certainly be questionable. But after experiencing it, I can truly say it is acceptable although there is better according to what people tell me. That shouldn't discount this place as time rolls through. The quality of lamb could definitely get better as this fall/winter season rolls through. So give it a try for yourself!

< 3 1/2 out of 5 >