New & Noted: VIA Modern Slow-Cooked Restaurant
What: Home cooking – restaurant style
Where: 222 Jianguo Xi Lu, near
Jiashan Lu. Tel: 6495 8885
Why: Slow and steady wins the race
An entire menu of slow-cooked items? Sure, it's gimmicky. But here's the secret about gimmicks: When they are pulled off, they're usually outstanding.
Set in a modern villa around the corner from Jiashan Market, VIA feels like a show kitchen. Or maybe a friend’s open dining room, if your friend is on an expat package sponsored by La Creuset, de Dietrich and Braun. It does the home cook’s self esteem good to know that right behind their fancy two-burner island is a comercial kitchen; your dinner party expectations are going to be well exceeded.
There are three different price points to choose from - RMB 280, RMB 380 or RMB 580 – and each diner in a group must select the same menu, as most of the dishes are served family style. Booking ahead is imperative, pacing is fast – it helps that each dish is already sous vide, slow braised or roasted for hours (if not days) at this point – and helpings are generous. We opted for the mid-range menu and received eight full courses, plus sides. A
bottle of easy drinking Cabernet-Merlot cost us RMB 168. The unmarked bottles are from a cask, allowing them to keep prices incredibly reasonable.
Our first foray into the slow food dinner was Thai-style octopus punctuated with fresh coriander, red pepper and onion. The typically tough cephalopod was rendered tender by an eight hour poaching, a velvety transformation that set the tone for the rest of the meal.
Molecular touches entered the meal with a poached egg sous vide for three hours at 61 degrees. The bright orange yolk was still runny, spilling its Golden contents onto a sweet bed of mashed Jerusalem artichoke spiked with white
truffle oil.
Save room for the fifth course: the suckling pig. This dish alone is worth the price of the menu. It takes almost three days from start to finish to create this perfect piece of pork. Marinated for 24 hours, slow-roasted at 50 degrees for a day, smoked for an hour and a half and finally finished in the oven. The skin is so crispy you can practically taste the onomatopoeia in crackling. The kumquat marmalade on the side is lovely on its own, but a wasted garnish. You don’t
want to cover up the gamey flavours of this baby pig with anything. There were no disappointments on the menu, from the hearty winter salad topped with roasted mushrooms and pickled beets to the sous vide beef rump, so tender, it barely needed chewing. Sure, we hoped that the slow cooking had been applied to dessert, a conventional tiramisu, but that’s just getting nitpicky.
Service is prompt and informal. Owner Edward Chau floats around the tables like a gracious host, explaining the cooking process of each dish, topping up glasses and making general chitchat in three languages. It’s professional dinner party dining, and you’ll feel right at home.
