Up where he belongs

One specialty of Da Liang is the Stir-fried White Custard, which is a fluffy cloud of egg white and rich milk. [Photo provided to shanghai star]

Daliang is often known as the Normandy of China, and is the only Han Chinese settlement, which uses diary products in its cuisine. It is also the hometown of many famous Chinese chefs.

You need to be pretty brave to put this dish on a regular menu. If this is not cooked well, the stir-fried custard weeps, and a puddle of water gathers at the bottom of the dish before long.

Chef Wong's custard was moist but dry, with plump pink prawns subtly hidden in the fluffy clouds of white. Every mouthful was tender and it was a truly soothing experience, almost like eating sophisticated baby food.

I did find the portion a little large. This is a dish that must be savored, not shoveled into the mouth.

The other test was the crisp-fried spring chicken, another Cantonese classic.

The chicken meat must be fully cooked and succulent, while the bone marrow still shows pink.

Jin Xuan's chicken is how it should be, with just that hint of pink about the bones. The skin was paper thin, and the subcutaneous fat had been rendered thoroughly.

There was a side saucer of peppered salt to dip into, but Chef Wong's chicken was full-flavored enough.

We ordered only two main dishes for lunch, but that was because we had a delicious bowl of matsutake mushroom soup to start with.

Two generously thick slices of matsutake sent up scented steam, and a huge fleshy shiitake mushroom took up almost a quarter of the bowl. Both the matsutake and shiitake were very meaty even though the soup is vegetarian. Sections of bamboo pith fungus completed the texture contrast.

A simple soup like this reflects the importance of ingredients used. Chef Wong is particular about what goes into his dishes and he journeys to Yunnan each year to make sure he gets the best supplies of mushrooms in season. The fat shiitake in our soup, he tells us, is ordered from Hokkaido.