A Peach of a Restaurant: Exotic Guizhou Specialties at Mitao

If your appetite’s been languishing, wake it up at Mitao – a peach of a restaurant. Guizhou and Yunnan dishes dominate the menu, with specialties that might surprise even fans of southwest Chinese cuisine.

The shaojiao xiaopidan (烧椒小皮蛋 RMB 25) presents diners with dozens of hundred-year quail eggs; cut into halves, their special flavor is smartly offset by soft and juicy flame-roasted bell peppers.

Next, we suggest you order two bowls of steamed rice. Combine the first with a salad of sugarcane seedlings (liangban ganzhemiao 凉拌甘蔗苗 RMB 22), garnished with mint and scallion. The seedlings, which resemble bamboo shoots (but even more tender), are nicely sweetened by the sauce, which is fruity, acidic, sugary and garlicky all at once.

For the second bowl of rice, try the generous portion of Yunnan-style banana blossoms stir-fried with minced beef (xiangjiaohua niuroumo 香蕉花牛肉沫 RMB 29). Neither greasy nor dry, it has an amazingly sophisticated fragrance and a fine flossy texture.

Veggie-lovers will like jiaoye bao yecai (蕉叶包野菜 RMB 28), assorted wild greens roasted in banana leaves to keep all the savory juices inside.

Unfortunately, the glutinous dumplings boiled in coconut milk (yejiang zhu tangyuan 椰浆煮汤圆 RMB 18), were as small as pearls and not nearly as exotic as I’d expected. We should have tried the sweet dumplings in their more “classic” stir-fried version (Bijie suancai chao tangyuan 毕节酸菜炒汤圆 RMB 28). But our mouths are still watering – we’ll be back for more.

Also try: Jia Xiu Lou Yuan, Little Yunnan

Mitao Restaurant 蜜桃餐厅
Daily 10am-10pm. 1) Unit 1330, 3/F, West Tower, Soho Shangdu, 8 Dongdaqiao Lu, Chaoyang District (5900 3106) 2) 6/F, Chaoyang Joy City, 28 Qingnian Lu, Chaoyang District (8552 3418)
1) 朝阳区东大桥路8号Soho尚都西塔3层1330号; 2) 朝阳区青年路28号朝阳大悦城6层

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Comments

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哈哈。 I'm a dk! Biggrin

Thanks for the constructive criticism, the two "whiches" in one sentence is indeed clunky - we'll bring it to the attention of our writer and editor.

Jerry Chan, Digital Marketing & Content Strategy Director

The food sounds interesting but the writing's a bit dodgy isn't it? I'd suggest not switching between the editorial "we" and first person.

Also:

"The seedlings, which resemble bamboo shoots (but even more tender), are nicely sweetened by the sauce, which is fruity, acidic, sugary and garlicky all at once."

"Which" twice in one sentence isn't good. Kill the brackets. Don't use any form of the word "nice". If the sauce has four taste elements why does it only "sweeten" the seedlings. "But" is best used for contradictions. Just because the seedlings resemble bamboo shoots there is no reason they should not be more tender.

That would be better written something like:

"A sauce that manages to be fruity, acidic, sugary and garlicky flavours seedlings that resemble tender bamboo shoots."