Celebrate One Year of Sifang Sanchuan With a Menu Designed to Stimulate All Five Senses

It seems like just yesterday that Mercedes Me revved into Sanlitun but just like that a year has passed. To celebrate this milestone, they have invited internationally acclaimed Chef Alan Hei to create a menu that is designed to stimulate the five senses. Chef Alan is a founding member of Food & Wine China and the host of 50 Best Restaurants China. 

As our editor Tracy wrote in her review last year, the Sifang in the restaurant's name "represents four squares (Kunming, Guiyang, Chengdu, and Chongqing). Together they define the ancient realm of Southwest China with their diverse cultures and various landforms. Sanchuan refers to the region's ancient Wei, Jin, and Luo rivers. The name also describes the desire to discover new places."

The "Five Senses" menu also draws on influences from the provinces of southwestern China but adds international flavors from Southeast Asia and beyond, as well as modern techniques. The menu kicks off with "taste of touch" (pictured at top), a thoroughly modern combination of tuna tartare served with a mala Sichuan sesame sauce and crispy chicharrones. The second course (pictured above) certainly did its job of evoking the sense of taste, combining tempura soft shell crab with a spicy peach salad and an ever so slightly sweet mango lassi "snow." For those who wouldn't think to pair crab with peach – now you know.

The third course, "smell," is an upgraded take on the classic combination of beef, mint, and pineapple, featuring tender braised beef ribs in a richly flavored clarified broth scented with mint and pineapple. Fans of Cantonese soups will be on familiar ground here. Perhaps the only disappointment was the fourth course, "sound," not because of how it tastes but simply because it is rather difficult to eat. The dish is a mashup of  sweet and sour deep-fried mandarin fish (also know as "squirrel fish" for the unusual shape it takes on after deep frying) and mapo doufu, served in a searing hot stone pot. We love the idea behind it but the stone pot stayed far to hot for too long. 

The menu ends with a modern riff on the Thai dessert, coconut sticky rice with mango (pictured above). 

Unfortunately, Chef Alan was only in the kitchen for a couple of days but the otherwise very capable Sifang Sanchuan kitchen team will be serving up the set menu until the end of May. The menu is priced at RMB 388 per person. 

More stories by this author here.

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Images: Robynne Tindall, courtesy of Mercedes Me