Founded in the early years of the Republic of China and closed on the eve of liberation, Rongyuan Is a well-known Sichuan cuisine temple in old Chengdu and the most influential catering brand in the history of Sichuan cuisine development. With its sumptuous feasts, exquisite countertops, novel dishes, and supreme cooking skills, it led the catering consumption fashion in Chengdu and even Bashu during the Republic of China period, and is regarded as the representative of authentic Sichuan cuisine. Nowadays, in the minds of some old Chengdu diners, there are still many good memories of tasting the delicious food of Rongyuan. The legendary story of Rong Paradise is still popular today. Speaking of Rongyuan, we must first talk about a difficult catering wizard in the history of Sichuan cuisine, he is the founder of Rongyuan, the founder of modern Sichuan cuisine, and a generation of grandmasters - Blu-ray Jian.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1897, Zhengxing Garden, founded by the Manchu famous chef Guan Zhengxing, had entered its 36th year, and its reputation and business were still booming. This year, although a very grand baoshiguan Jufengyuan rose in Chengdu's Huaxing Street, it was still in the early stages of refining ports. Zhengxingyuan is still sitting firmly in the position of the leading boss of Chengdu's catering industry. One day, Qi Lezhai, the number one chef in Zhengxing Garden, brought a doll from a relative in Chengdu, who happened to be 13 years old. For this poor boy, to take on the heavy responsibility of providing for the family, becoming a famous cook became the desire of this young teenager.
Guan Zhengxing looked at this baby with a clever look, although she was not tall, but she still grew quite strong, plus she was also the younger generation of his subordinates. Originally, Guan Zhengxing had always attached importance to the cultivation of talents, so he specially arranged for Blu-ray to worship Gui Baoshu (Guan Zhizi) as a teacher. At that time, as an apprentice in the Bao Xi Hall, according to the rules of the trade, he did not work money but to eat and live, every day he got up early in the morning to do some chores, parallel goods, washing dishes, cleaning the kitchen, cleaning up charcoal, fire, coal ash and other chores, and he also had to follow the instructions of the master, after the masters stopped working that night, the raw materials for the next day were processed into semi-finished products, such as sea cucumbers, shark fins, magnolia slices, etc. The blue light book that first entered the garden mainly did such complicated chores. Since the business of Zhengxingyuan has always been very good, apprentices rarely have free time throughout the year, and it is common to stay up for more vigils to prepare materials, and at the end of the year, there are only a few masters to give their share of the money. Blu-ray Jian was bent on realizing his wishes earlier, so he did not say much, was diligent and fast, hard-working, intelligent and wise, studying hard, quietly stealing the scriptures, watching and remembering, before he was out of the master, he had already learned a good cooking skill, plus he was good at handling things for people, he was sober and well-behaved, so he was quite appreciated by Guan Zhengxing and Guibaoshu, and before the apprenticeship period was completed, he often sent him to pick up the burden of the table in the suburbs to "collect business". And often it was late at night, and the city gate could not be closed to enter the city, so he spent the night under the city wall and on the bench.
After the Blu-ray identification, his second brother Lan Guangrong, the third brother Blu-ray Wall also went to Zhengxing Garden to apprentice, the three brothers not only worked hard, but also often practiced their skills together, and diligently asked the brothers and masters for advice, the cooking skills are getting better and better, very valued by the Guan family, after the completion of the apprenticeship, they are all stayed in the garden to cook. Due to the fame and influence of the park in Chengdu and the busy business, the three brothers have a unique opportunity to learn from celebrity chefs from all over the world. The Lan brothers are willing to delve into cooking techniques and try their best to learn cooking methods outside the province, accumulating over time, and their cooking skills are becoming more and more comprehensive. In particular, through the exchanges between Zhou Shanpei and He Lunkui, who were known as "Zhou Pai" (Su Cuisine) and "He Pai" (Beijing Cuisine), two big eaters who had a lot of influence on Zhengxing Garden at that time, listened to the two people talk about the cooking characteristics of Famous Dishes of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Beijing Cuisine, and learned to integrate the cooking skills of the North and the South. After more than 20 years of training, this Blu-ray Jian has done its best to pass on the true transmission of Zhengxingyuan's culinary style. His outstanding skills and talent have been known in the industry as early as the end of the Qing Dynasty. Zhou Shanpei, who was then the general office of Sichuan Persuasion Road, admired the Blu-ray Jian and praised it: "Chengdu Hundred Pavilions for banquet guests, Zhengxing Garden is the crown of Rong." There are thousands of people in the treatment, and Sichuan flavor is the first to promote blue light. ”
In the early years of the Republic of China, with the fall of the Qing Dynasty, "Zhengxingyuan" lost the mainstream source of Manchu nobles, the business became increasingly depressed, and in the tenth month of the lunar calendar in 1911, it experienced military disasters, wars and fires, which can be described as worse, and finally collapsed in early 1912. The three Blu-ray Jian brothers assisted the third master of Zhengxing Garden (guibaoshu's brother) to deal with the aftermath of the closure, shed tears and said goodbye, and embarked on the road of breaking through the rivers and lakes alone. In the autumn of that year, the three brothers and their uncle Qi Lezhai set up a private seat hall in Huguangguan Street (now the second section of Dongfeng Road) in Chengdu, Rong Paradise. The scale of the store is not large, the founding capital is 300 silver dollars, all directly invested by Qi Lezhai, and the Lan brothers are invested in technology. Huguangguan Street had a vegetable market that was the largest in Chengdu at the time, and there was also a Xinglong Nunnery on the street. Qi Lezhai and the Lan brothers could not afford to rent and buy regular business houses due to limited funds for start-up, so they negotiated with the abbot of the nunnery, Eye Cheng, and temporarily set up the museum in the temple, and the abbot agreed to the incense.
In that year, Blu-ray Jian opened the business license of Rongyuan Park
Although RongYuan Park fully inherited the style characteristics of Zhengxing Garden, at first it was mainly based on "side dishes with the hall, delivering meals to the door, and making banquets". Soon, Qi Lezhai was in poor health and withdrew, and was taken over by Blu-ray Jian and his brothers Lan Guangrong and Blu-ray Wall. The three Lan brothers have their own strengths, the eldest brother and boss Blu Jian is good at soliciting customers, and has been circling between bureaucratic warlords for a long time and has a wide range of financial resources; the old third Blu Bi is a master of financial management, a special director sits in the cabinet to manage the accounts, and five fingers dial the abacus beads, which is incomparable; the second elder Lan Guangrong is an expert in the "white case" with excellent skills, and the great painter Zhang Daqian praises the "lotus leaf painting cake" made by Lan Guangrong. Other chefs in charge of the administration are Deng Houze, Wu Wenxuan, Zhou Yingnan, etc., all of whom are famous Sichuan chefs in Chengdu. On the one hand, Rongyuan Inherits and carries forward the traditional characteristics of Zhengxing garden, on the other hand, it absorbs the advantages of the southern and northern dishes, as well as the strengths of the Chengdu Zhujiatang, thus forming the unique style of Rongyuan Sichuan cuisine. In the 1980s, Chengdu Luoma City Rong Paradise
Although the fame of the three Lan brothers is thunderous in Chengdu, the opening of RongYuan Park still brings diners a new and different feeling. He is known for making high-end feasts and family-style dishes, such as braised bear paws, roasted deer tendons with green onions, pigeon eggs and swallows in clear soup, dried shark fin soup, sour and spicy sea cucumber, cordyceps duck, cold powder crucian carp and so on. Even ordinary raw materials such as poultry and livestock, dried and fresh vegetables, the dishes are also unique; the production of various soup dishes is also very diverse, very exquisite, quite distinctive. It has also reformed and innovated a large number of Sichuan dishes with a large number of moxibustion population, such as "Eight Treasure Pot Steaming", "Hui Scratch Han" (also known as Pheasant Red), "Five Ren Cake", "Crab Yellow Ginkgo", "Shrimp Soft Fried Noodles" and "Char Siu Chicken". Rongyuan's cooking, stewing, steaming, and especially tamales maintain the essence of traditional Sichuan cuisine and at the same time greatly improve.
Lao Er Lan Glory even designed and produced a variety of exquisite and delicious pasta dim sum, such as crab yellow buns, crystal cold cakes, lard hair cakes, beef water shoot noodles, eel shoot noodles, red soup noodles, torn ear noodles and various soups, etc., using Shanxi's ear noodles instead of the general fried sauce noodles and red soup noodles; in terms of desserts, the old-fashioned snacks such as sauce rice crisp and soybean cake were eliminated, and replaced by new dim sums such as jam boxes and potato cakes. Rong Paradise has always maintained a fresh style of cuisine, unique in the industry, attracting a large number of good fresh, strange eaters from all sides, daily traffic, business is overwhelmed.
Early 80's Sakae Park table menu with prices
Blu-ray Jian believes that the dishes are always clichéd and old-fashioned, which will make people tired, as long as they are changed reasonably, well changed, and boldly changed. Like the late Qing Dynasty, the midpoint, four cold dishes, and four hot plates before the feast were extremely cumbersome, so he simplified them to four plates, and then directly served the main dish and soup, calling it "light rice". This time-saving and cost-saving form of light food created a new food style in Chengdu's catering industry at that time, which was very popular with the diners, and the "light meals" and "light drinks" in the industry and restaurants also came from this.
In addition, Blu-ray Jian also combines the famous Lai of major Lai families in the country, the vegetarian dishes of Gongguan Temple, the Halal cuisine of Islam, and the Western cuisine of Europe and the United States, all of which are combined and integrated into the Sichuan cuisine. It is said that whenever the new dish in his mind is considered mature, he will invite a few gourmet friends and one or two guys to come to the idyllic countryside and personally bury the pot to make a meal. When the new dish is cooked by a pair of clever hands in blue light, several people raise a glass to taste in the fields of wheat seedling green and cauliflower yellow, and discuss the gains and losses of this dish together. For example, the famous "Winter Bamboo Shoots ShaoJiu", "Roast Beef Knee Pads" and "Steamed Large Pieces of Silver Carp" in Rong Paradise have a good taste and wonderful taste. Blu-ray Jian said: "These dishes were stolen from Huang Sanye (Huang Baolin), and they are the main dishes of the 'Aunt Feast'. ”
Blu-ray Is also good at creating delicious dishes according to the times and people. Among most of the middle and upper-class diners, some pay attention to taste, some prefer ingredients, and some pay attention to health. For example, if there are dishes that like to eat oil and strong flavor, they make famous dishes such as "bbq milk pig", "char siu crispy square", "char siu grass chicken", "bean residue baked pig head"; for those who like to eat nourishing and healthy dishes, they launch "shell hen", "cordyceps duck", "silver ear pigeon egg" and other delicacies; some customers like to eat fresh vegetables, they make "eight treasure vegetarian stew", "three mushrooms in clear soup", "three fresh vegetable hearts", etc., and even "braised lettuce tip", "dried sautéed eggplant skin", "rotten meat thick skin dish", "braised fried bean sprouts" Folk dishes that have fallen from the soil have become famous dishes through the hands of famous teachers in Rongyuan. In RongYuan, those master chefs are mostly proficient in the red and white skills, in addition to meat and vegetarian dishes, but also launched a lot of boutique snacks, such as leek boxes, radish silk cakes, flower cakes, potato cakes, red amaranth cakes, mushroom cakes, beef bean sprout buns, crab yellow buns, three fresh fish soup noodles, ear noodles, chicken soft fried noodles, etc.
RongYuan famous dish Eight Treasure Vegetarian Stew
Another refreshing thing about Rong Park is the "countertop", the decoration and decoration of the impromptu tabletop. There are no traditional melon hand plates, cold plates, hot plates, pairs, midpoints, table points, sugar bowls and other complicated pre-dinner snacks on the table, but a simple 4 plates as an embellishment for the opening of the table, and then the eight main dishes, and finally the soup dish to eat. This kind of table is simple and exquisite, which can not only select one or two of the essence dishes such as bird's nest mat, shark fin seat, abalone seat, sea cucumber seat, etc. to add to the table, add flavor and grade, and reduce the flashy pomp and circumstance, saving the customer's expenses, so it is deeply appreciated by customers. With this reform, Rongyuan Garden sold dozens of tables every day, and its operation was greatly improved, and its influence was heard in the industry for a while, and even became the specification of Sichuan cuisine table.
Blu-ray Jian is particularly strict about cooking dishes, and he requires chefs to first have solid basic skills to ensure the purity of Sichuan cuisine. His apprentice special chef Zhang Songyun once told such an experience: after he was discharged from Rongyuan, he went to run beaches in other places for many years, and when he returned to Chengdu, he encountered a good business and attendance days in Rongyuan, but Lan Zhangmen did not want him to go to the stove, but asked him to "slap the palm" (temporary helper), saying that he had been running outside for a long time, afraid of making authentic Sichuan dishes sampled and ruining the reputation of Rongyuan, which shows the rigor of The requirements of Blu-ray Jian.
But on the other hand, he encourages chefs to be bold and innovative, adding new varieties at any time to meet the needs of customers. The garden has successively launched hundreds of varieties of dishes and colors, which is beautiful. For example, Guangdong's raw slice hot pot, butterfly wontons, Jiangsu and Zhejiang shrimp pop-fried eels, drunken crabs, Shanxi, Shaanxi vinegared fish, Lu cai south of the duck, etc., are all famous dishes outside the province; as well as Buddhist Luohan cuisine, vegetarian stew, Islam in fried sheep cake, wok steaming, all after rongyuan reform on the back end of the Sichuan cuisine table. Wok steaming is originally made of fat powder as a raw material and stir-fried with vegetable oil. Blu-ray Jian thought that it was too simple to meet the needs of the table, so it switched to fine flour with a variety of candied products, and after many successful trials, it was named Eight Treasure Pot Steaming. Most of the vegetarian dishes eaten by the Nine Emperors of Taoism are made of radish, lettuce and tall bamboo shoots, which are loved by people. Rong Paradise remodeled it and added shredded pork, and sprinkled a handful of steamed buns after cooking, which has a different flavor. Blu-ray Jian also blends folk home cooking with high-end dishes on the table, and the coarse dishes are exquisitely cooked. For example, in the general home-cooked fish sesame rapeseed with fish fillets, fried soybean sprouts with shredded squid and winter shoot shreds, the taste is very different, and even the steamed cakes sold in the streets and alleys, plus exquisite hearts, have also become feast points.
Soon after the appearance of Rongyuan, good stories and interesting stories were frequently circulated, among which the most widely circulated and influential were one who hosted a feast of 100 tables for Xiong Kewu, the governor of Sichuan, and liu Congyun, a subordinate of the provincial chairman and warlord Liu Xiang.
Modern Sichuan cuisine Kaizong Li Sect Grandmaster Blu-ray Jian
One day in 1918, Xiong Kewu, commander-in-chief of the Sichuan Jingguo Army and governor of Sichuan, held a grand banquet for the birthday celebration, and was recommended that the birthday feast be hosted by Rong Paradise and ordered a shark fin table for 100 tables. The banquet was set up in a large theater, singing on the stage, and seating was set up under the stage, and people called this feast of watching the play and drinking "hall meeting". In order to avoid the difficulty of crowding the guests to open the table, the feast chose the traditional "flowing water seat" method, that is, the guests sat at a full table to open a table, and the guests who did not have a table could watch the drama with peace of mind, and the guests at the table could drink freely, so that the whole banquet was orderly and not noisy. But for the organizers of the banquet, such a large-scale flowing water table is not an easy task. It requires on-call and on-call, a few seats to be opened, and a temporary increase in the number of tables or a reduction in the number of tables to be neat and error-free. This is a severe test for the chef's skill and the management and scheduling level of the restaurant, if the raw materials are not adequately prepared, the use is unplanned, the chef's skills are not good, the contingency plan is not perfect, etc., it will be chaotic.
On that day, the birthday feast of the Xiong Overseer was naturally full of dignitaries and dignitaries, and the scene was very large. Blu-ray Jian personally went out as the chief dispatcher, he is experienced, very organized, flexible in command, and easy to dispatch. The guests who came at ate with great praise. At the end of the meeting, Xiong Kewu asked someone to give Lan a large carrying box of fourteen-color gifts to express his gratitude, and praised Lan Dawei in front of the guests, saying: "I have no problem commanding a large army to fight, and if I want to command this scene, it will not work. From then on, the bear looked at Lan differently, and all the banquets of the Overseer's Office were called Rong Paradise to undertake. When there are difficulties in the turnover of funds in Rongyuan, you can also borrow from the Quartermaster Office of the Superintendent's Office. This makes the fame of Rong Paradise shake the Bashu River and Lake.
Another time was in the early 1930s, when Liu Xiang was stationed in Chengdu, his military division and model division commander Liu Congyun was a regular visitor to Rongyuan. One day in 1934, someone gave Liu Congyun an elephant nose, and he sent an adjutant to hand it over to RongYuan, and explained that Blu-ray Jian would use elephant trunks as the main dish, accompanied by a table and other banquets, and the price must be good no matter how much. The elephant trunk is one of the Eight Mountain Treasures, and in the past only the imperial kitchen of the imperial palace could cook. For a moment, everyone in the garden was dumbfounded, and the famous chef Zhou Yingnan took the thick, thick and hard elephant nose and said, "Let me try it, I must fight for the face of Rong Paradise." On the day of the banquet, Zhou Yingnan painstakingly cooked a large dish of elephant trunk, and Liu Congyun praised it after tasting it, thinking that it was remarkable that Rong Paradise could be a famous dish for the imperial kitchen of the imperial palace.
In the twelfth year of the Republic of China (1923), Rongyuan opened a branch in Yangshi Street, named "Chen Xue", mainly engaged in noodle snacks. It is headed by Zhou Yingnan and Lan Guangrong, and chefs from Kong Daosheng, Dai Ruiting and Zhou Gongxue. Due to the rich variety, fine production and mellow flavor of snacks, they are very praised by the majority of diners. Its crab yellow buns, lard hair cake, bose oil cake, flower shortbread, red soup noodles, three fresh ear noodles, eel shoot noodles, beef water shoot noodles, silver ear soup, hashma soup, lotus leaf mung bean soup, etc. are loved by diners and have a strong reputation.
Rongyuan famous dish char siu fish
In 1933, when an owner sold the property where the Buhou Street Park site was located, the new patron was Li Qixiang, commander-in-chief of the Sichuan Border Defense Army, and through matchmaking, Blu-ray Jian reached a site reconstruction and long-term lease agreement with Li Shi on fairly favorable terms: funded by the owner, the building was rebuilt according to the business requirements of Rong Park, long-term rent was used with Rong Park, and the construction fees consumed were advanced by Rong Park, half of which was used as a deposit for renting a house, and the other half was used as rent, which was converted according to bank interest every month. The housing expansion project was designed and constructed by Shuhua Company, the construction is very reasonable, there are 16 rooms for banquets alone, which can receive nearly 100 tables of guests at the same time, providing extremely convenient conditions for the expansion of Rongyuan Park.
In order to build the first-class dining environment in Rongcheng, Blu-ray Jian also made a careful arrangement for the seating field, specially customized printed tablecloths, glass tabletops, high-grade leather sofas, etc. in Shanghai, and decorated 16 rooms magnificently; the edible utensils were also very elaborate, sending special personnel to Jingdezhen, Jiangxi To order antique porcelain, from spoons to plates and bowls totaling more than thousands of pieces, and also added the original ivory chopsticks to nearly a hundred tables; the four walls of the garden were hung with calligraphy and paintings of Shuzhong celebrities such as Xiang Xianqiao and Sheng Gongwei, as well as the treasures of Hainei calligraphy and paintings. And the calligraphy and paintings in the 16 rooms were all replaced in the fourth quarter. Once, a calligraphy work of all the Qing Dynasty emperors (said to have been collected by Blu-ray Bi for many years) was hung. Such a pomp and elegant environment was unique in Chengdu at that time.
At this time, there were many British and American people in Chengdu, and the military and the faculty of West China University also often gathered for dinner. Blu-ray Jian kept pace with the times, boldly introduced Western food, and successfully changed it to Western food. For example, American asparagus, changed to asparagus pigeon eggs; Indian curry chicken, changed to bowls and small pieces on the table; French mushrooms, changed to mushroom pigeon eggs; American cherries, changed into cherry jelly as dessert on the table, both to help digestion, but also has the effect of decanting. Among them, the more difficult is the American turkey, it was originally the whole launch, divided by the owner to pay tribute, RongYuanyuan changed it to outsource the network oil with char siu method, divided into three parts, named char siu chicken. Another example is the tomato, egg yolk, shrimp fried noodles in Western food, it is characterized by tomato and shrimp to stick to the noodles, the noodles are made of egg yolk, the finished product is red, yellow and white is very beautiful, especially delicious and delicious, quite appreciated by British and American guests.
The soup dishes of RongYuan Are especially famous for Guan Chuanxi, and their production is very exquisite. Blu-ray Jian often said: "The cavity of singing, the soup of the chef." He often talks about his experience in hanging soup: First, pay attention to the heat, "milk soup should be fierce (large fire boiling), clear soup should be hung (simmered on small fire); "Second, pay attention to ingredients, soup ingredients"no chicken (old hen) is not fresh, no duck (old duck) is not fragrant, no belly is not white (pork belly), no elbow (pork knuckle) is not thick." "The soup dishes in Rong Paradise are not only varied and self-contained, but also delicious and delicious. Its widely acclaimed representative dishes include: boiled water cabbage, bamboo pigeon egg soup, white ear pigeon egg soup, meat cake soup, Cigu meatball soup, tomato oxtail soup, mussel winter melon soup, etc., polychromatic flavor raised in one dish, fresh and delicious. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, British tank commander Han Ke, Captain Chennault of the US Flying Tigers, and diplomats from the Anglo-American and French Consulates in Chengdu also visited Rongyuan Many times, and all praised the business style of Rongyuan's exquisite Sichuan cuisine and Chinese cuisine and Western cuisine.
In the 1980s, Zhang Songyun, a famous chef at Rongyuan Park, guided the development of Ai Tu Wang
Not only that, Blu-ray Jian and Blue Glory often go deep into folk restaurants to discover and collect some folk dishes that the public is happy to eat. As early as the 1920s, Lan Guangrong had been kissed several times by the imperial city dam's pot and basin lung slices, thinking that this was a flavor snack, so through improved production methods, without brine or soup, mixed with fried salt sea pepper noodles, pepper noodles and other dry spices, called "dry mix lung slices", spicy hemp dry aroma, beef flavor, wine is particularly good, quite popular, has become a special cold dish of Rongyuan Park.
As the saying goes: three people work together, and the stone becomes gold. Since the beginning of their apprenticeship in Zhengxing garden, the three lan brothers have been intimate and harmonious, working together, and exhibiting their strengths, and the business of Rongyuan has become more and more popular and continuously developed. Often in the second half of the year, it is the peak of the wedding season, and the wedding banquet of Rong Paradise is often dozens of tables, and sometimes the soldiers have to go out in several ways. At this time, it is Blu-ray Jian who personally takes command, Lan Guangrong acts as the first, and Blu-ray Wall sits in logistics. Several of his generals led the way and set up a position, only to see the fire of the stove, the shining of the sword, the pots and spoons, the jingle of the pots and pans, the delivery of dishes, and the shuttle back and forth, just like the tense and fierce battle scene. When the work was completed, Blu-ray Jian leisurely teased his birds and pondered the layout of the next step; the third elder was also considering the material scheduling of another banquet when admiring his collection of antique calligraphy and paintings; only the second elder was the most casual and relaxed, and he was at ease to go to the scene to sing the drum or listen to the yangqin.
On the eve of liberation, due to the collapse of the business due to the war, Rong Paradise was forced to close its business in internal and external difficulties. At the beginning of 1950, the Lan family brothers in order to seek a family's livelihood, and not willing to let their own family's lifelong struggle of cooking skills idle, the three brothers gathered the old department, in the Zitong Bridge Main Street opened a restaurant, named "Labor Canteen", zero meals and light meals, and then moved to Zongfu Street and renamed "Qunli Canteen", taking the collective wisdom and collective efforts, and rising up again. The storefront is nothing special or unremarkable. A single room façade, a sign hanging on the door of the store, into the hall to pass through a narrow passage is the entrance to the hall, there are six tables, the right is the kitchen, at that time only served zero meals, because of the liberation, no one to cover the table. The restaurant is still Blu-ray Jian "take the total", Blue Glory to do pastry, Blu-ray Bi sits on the cabinet, palm stove chefs have Blu-ray Jian Zhi Chuan Ai Disciple, Zhang Deshan, Zeng Guohua, Mao Qicheng, Cai Bosan, etc.; famous dishes are: dry roasted jade ridge wings, a pint of sea cucumber, dried sautéed squid shreds, baby chicken bean flower, cold powder crucian carp, five-spice powder tamales, etc. Because the original fame is very large, the business is naturally very prosperous after opening.
One day in March 1958, at 12:00 noon, several mysterious guests with large masks, surrounded by a group of guards, entered the east room of the Qunli Canteen and entered the back hall to shake hands with the chef, the runner, and the blue light of the cabinet. After the meal, Mao Zedong was also very happy to ask Master Zhang Deshan about the cooking method of "mushroom old tofu" and said that it was the best of the tofu dishes he had eaten. Chairman Mao praised the chefs' exquisite cooking skills. Subsequently, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, etc. also came here to dine, and the evaluation was very high. The Qunli canteen turned around in a windmill and became famous.
Qunli canteen in the early 1950s
Rongyuan not only carried forward Sichuan cuisine and formed a famous cuisine with unique local characteristics in China, but also cultivated sichuan cuisine masters such as Zhang Songyun, Kong Daosheng, Liu Duyun, Zhu Weixin, Zeng Guohua, Hua Xingchang, Mao Qicheng, Chen Jianxin, Zeng Qichang, Yang Xiaocheng, Wang Development, as well as Zhou Haiqiu in Chongqing, Wu Chaodong in Mianyang and other Sichuan cuisine masters, so that the culinary technology of Rongyuan and the authentic spirit of Sichuan cuisine were also completely inherited.
Subsequently, due to various reasons, the golden brand of "Rong Paradise" was idle for a long time. Until 1970, many years after the death of the Lan brothers, the sign of "Rong Paradise" was re-hung in Luoma City, downtown Chengdu, and continued to supply Chinese and foreign diners with authentic Sichuan flavor, and also set up a special teaching stove as a training base, taught by Zhang Songyun, Kong Daosheng, Zeng Guohua and so on. For a time, it was known as "Sichuan Cuisine Whampoa Military Academy". The training lasted for nearly 10 years, and the second generation of disciples of the "Blue Sect" cultivated was innumerable, scattered throughout the country and even around the world, all of whom were famous Sichuan cuisine masters.
In 1980, Chengdu Catering Company renamed the "Hongqi Restaurant" in the Cultural Revolution to "Rong Paradise", and decorated it in the courtyard style of the first floor and the first floor of the courtyard, with hall seats and high-end halls such as Rongle, Rongxi, Ronglu and Rongshou, becoming one of the largest places in chengdu's catering industry. The baby chicken bean blossoms, jar meat and cold powder crucian carp produced by RongYuanyuan were also named "Chengdu Famous Dishes" by the Chengdu Municipal People's Government in 1992. In 1997, due to urban construction and demolition, it was moved to the second section of Renmin Middle Road; in 2004, after the company's restructuring and adjustment, Rongyuan Park was moved to Liangui South Road in the east of the city, and Rongyuan Garden was a disciple, and Zhang Liping, a master of Sichuan cuisine, served as the general manager and took charge of cooking, and re-promoted the famous dishes of the past.
Rongyuan Park in Luoma City, Chengdu in the 1980s
RongYuan Park is not only famous in China, but also has long been famous overseas. In June 1980, Rongyuan, the first Sichuan restaurant jointly operated by China and the United States, opened in New York, USA, opening a new chapter in Sichuan cuisine to the world. Liu Jiancheng and Zeng Guohua, the special chefs of Sichuan cuisine, served as the head chef and vice chef, and led more than ten senior chefs to form a chef team.
Rong Paradise's fish fragrant eight pieces of chicken and fish fragrant eggplant strips were commented by the New York Times as "incredible and incomparable magical delicacies"; praised the fairy duck "soup as light as water, delicious as alcohol"; zhong dumplings "like silk", spring rolls "petite crispy", walnut puree "intoxicating" and so on. Subsequently, an American community organized a special performance of lamb cooking by famous chefs from French, German, Russian, Indian, Japanese and Chinese cuisines. Master Zeng Guohua's fish-flavored lamb shredded skills were amazing, and he was full of drunkenness and was highly appreciated. The media praised: "Sichuan taste is authentic, worthy of the name". Teacher Zeng not only won 10,000 US dollars in prize money, but the organizer also invited him to take a group photo under the five-star red flag. For the first time, American dignitaries, senior Uncom officials, celebrities and gourmets have tasted the flavor charm of authentic Sichuan cuisine. For this reason, RongYuan won the excellent evaluation of "Samsung" by the New York Times. A famous New York food critic known for her pickiness, known as the "Empress Dowager Cixi", said that if the spicy taste of mapo tofu is enough, she will make an exception for the first time to give a "four-star" super good evaluation. The New York Times also commented: "Ten chefs, each one is a star." Food critic Mi Sheraton said: "The dishes eaten in Rongyuan, from quality to flower color, are the most authentic and best In New York Chinese cuisine." In this way, RongYuan Park set off a strong "Sichuan cuisine fever" in New York.
Just over a year after its opening, there have been heads of state and government of more than ten countries who have hosted a banquet here, and people from all walks of life in the United States, representatives of various countries in the United Nations, overseas Chinese and foreign Chinese are also regular guests here. Once the Chinese Embassy invited Kissinger, when he saw that the waiter was going to take away the plate of "crispy fish" that had been eaten almost the same, Kissinger hurriedly said: "Please don't take it, it's all left behind." US Secretary of State Schultz went to Rongyuan Garden for dinner, tasted and ate Zeng Guohua's "Panda Play Bamboo", "Pine Crane Platter", "Lotus Vegetarian Stew", etc., very happy, specially invited Master Zeng to take a group photo. At the same time, Sichuan cuisine culture and Sichuan cuisine have left a good impression on the people of the world. Its Yang Lian "Rong Zu Rong Xian, Four Seasons Color Aroma Soup Ding; Leshan Leshui, Eight Treasures Delicious Xie Yin and Yang". The first sentence is named after the store with "Rong" and "Le", which is famous at home and abroad along with the food of Rong Paradise and the nostalgia of overseas Chinese.
Wang succeeded his brother Yang Xiaocheng as the last head chef of Rongyuan Park in New York
Looking at the growth and development experience of Blu-ray Jian and RongYuan, Rongyuan has opened the sect for Sichuan cuisine for decades, leaving behind the "authentic Sichuan flavor" and countless mellow and fragrant classic dishes, and skilled master chefs, which have never been seen in any generation before. The contribution and influence of Blu-ray Jian to modern Sichuan cuisine are highlighted in three aspects: one is the elite and simple administration of Sichuan cuisine feasts, the second is the dish innovation of the integration of north and south, and the third is to cultivate the famous teachers of art apprentices. Even after retiring from the jianghu, he has devoted himself to training a large number of students and senior chefs in the more than ten years of teaching in the Department of Nutrition and Health Care of West China Medical University. He once said: "The so-called authentic Sichuan flavor is based on the original north and south, and the pattern is also its own." "Authentic Sichuan flavor is a local dish made by the master of cooking in the north and south, which is integrated into the Sichuan flavor and is best eaten by the Sichuan people." He also quoted from the ancient books: "Choose those who are good and follow them, and those who are not good will change them." This incisive theory is still the foundation of the innovative development of Sichuan cuisine.
Although RongYuan, a century-old restaurant and restaurant, has finally completely faded out of people's vision, it is "the yang soul is not scattered", which is permanently left in people's memory, just as in the streets and alleys, after tea and dinner, the anecdotes about Rongyuan are still gathering in small pieces, telling an interesting talk and locking a legend of the development of Sichuan cuisine. It is: catering wizards are rare in a hundred years, and Sichuan cuisine is authentic from generation to generation.
Nowadays, inheriting the style of Rongyuan Garden, the Songyunze Baoshi Pavilion is developed by the second and third generations of the Rongpai Wang and Zhang Yuanfu.
Sichuan Cuisine Culture Scholar "Sichuan Province Zhi • Sichuan Cuisine Chronicle" Deputy Editor-in-Chief Sichuan Cuisine "Old Stubborn Family Professor Tang" Consultant "A Hundred Years of Sichuan Cuisine Legend", "Roadside Sichuan Cuisine History", "Spicy Hemp Temptation 300 Years" Author Original • Jianghu Gluttony East 2020.01.22 Chengdu