Dazed by Flavor Yunnan Restaurant: Friendly Staff Make Up For Lackluster Dishes and Weird Space

Tom Arnstein | Jul 25, 2016 2:30 pm | Add a comment | 1276 reads

Having just returned from that most somnolent and comfortable Chinese province, Yunnan, with a better understanding of Dai cuisine and happy acknowledgement that Beijing’s smattering of Yunnan restaurants do their southern brethren quite proud, I was keen to head to Dongsi’s newly opened and awkwardly titled Dazed by Flavor Yunnan Restaurant.

The first thought that came to mind when entering the restaurant, which resembles something between an S&M bondage dungeon (all red and black and because no one had bothered to turn on the lights) and whichever bar occupied the space before (because no effort has been made to redecorate), was that the owners may have unfortunately dazed themselves. Three deflated balloons remained tied to the curtain rail adjacent to the kitchen, a sad reminder of the opening party earlier this year, forever ago.

The one lone chef was in the back, frantically putting together the finishing touches to a waimai order, half in the kitchen and half asking what we wanted to eat, preparing for a grocery run to buy ingredients on the fly. Things weren’t shaping up well but the flustered cook kindly offered some of his homemade mijiu to placate us, which certainly did take the edge off of the bewilderment of stepping into a nether zone not yet ready for public consumption.

Upon returning from the market, arms full of as-fresh-as-you-can-get produce for our meal, the chef got to preparing our dishes. The first to arrive was the “patina tofu” (RMB 38), thick and firm wedges of tofu in chili sauce, similar to mapo dofu but with an added sourness and a sprinkling of coriander, both trademarks of Dai food. Suddenly, the slipshod appearance of Dazed started to melt and we could start to see past the aforementioned faults. Could the following dishes keep up?

Next was chicken with pineapple (RMB 42, pictured at top), which lacked any characteristic flavor from the chicken and was a little too salty, overpowering the sweetness from the chunks of pineapple.

The spicy beef jerky (RMB 78) fared the same fate and was rendered overly salty with no real spiciness to speak of, surprising given the mountain of chilis stacked on top of the chewy slabs of meat.

The owner, who arrived mid-meal went on to recommend their Tengchong dajiujia (RMB 38), a mixture of niangao (dense rice cake popular in the south), spring onion, peanuts, egg, cabbage, and red pepper that comes with it’s own special story, as many Chinese specialties so often do. Dajiujia literally means "epic emperor rescue" and was attached to this hodgepodge of fried ingredients when the late Ming Yongli Emperor had a narrow escape from military general Wu Sangui, fleeing to Yunnan’s Tengchong county. Upon his arrival, the villages welcomed him, making this dish to replenish his energy. By the end of the meal, we could see why they settled on this one: the medley of niangao and egg makes for heavy eating and didn’t particularly pack any personality. There was no way you’d be doing any more running after getting this in you.

Finally, the bamboo sticky rice (RMB 12), another Yunnan staple, was well-cooked but came conspicuously late into the meal, which meant that it was denied of its chance to complement some of the saltier dishes that had come prior and may have made everything go down a little easier.

All in all, Dazed by Yunnan was salvaged by friendly management and the particularly hospitable chef who got us tipsy on his backyard mijiu. However, if the restaurant is to succeed they will need to do a lot of work to the space, which is not helped by the fact that they seem to be trying to maintain its bar background by offering cocktails and the like into the night, a look that is not conducive to eating.