This year, the team of Jimmy Wei, chef at Park Hyatt Hangzhou, will be visiting Japan.
The China Room, the restaurant at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo, welcomes a guest chef each year to offer limited-time dishes. This year, Jimmy Wei, the Chinese chef from the Park Hyatt Hangzhou, has come with his team.
Chef Jimmy Wei, invited from Park Hyatt Hangzhou, came to Japan with a team including a dim sum chef to showcase his culinary skills. He is a leading chef from Hangzhou, having received the "Black Pearl Restaurant" award for seven consecutive years, the Best Chef award at Le Cordon Bleu's "Global Gourmet Chef Pal Excellence" in 2018, and being selected as one of Forbes China's "30 Chefs" in 2024.
Hangzhou is located in the mountainous region of Zhejiang Province, and its cuisine is characterized by the use of fresh river fish and shrimp caught in West Lake. It is also the production area of Longjing tea, known as the finest green tea, and the delicate flavors of the dishes are well-suited to Japanese tastes. Chef Jimmy also focuses on appetizers, and all five of the appetizers were superb.
The meal begins with five appetizers that will get you in the mood. From the lotus root with glutinous rice and pomegranate syrup, the dishes continue with delightful textures and subtle sweetness, each with a very delicate flavor. Clockwise from the top left of the photo: Jinhua ham wrapped around bamboo shoots with mustard greens, lotus root with glutinous rice and pomegranate syrup, squid with sea urchin in garlic spicy sauce, vegetables wrapped with caviar, jellyfish salad with steamed chicken, and foie gras with rice wine.
These are two dishes made by the dim sum chef on Chef Jimmy's team: Shanghai crab xiaolongbao and beef buns with sea urchin. I particularly liked the beef buns. The bottom is nicely browned, and the top is soft and steamed, with a springy wrapper encasing the beef filling. I had imagined a heavy flavor, but it had a light taste that allowed me to taste the umami of the Wagyu beef, and I felt like I could eat them endlessly. Light, delicate, and elegant flavor. This is characteristic of Hangzhou cuisine. It's definitely to the liking of Japanese people.
Next up is steamed soup with bird's nest-infused grouper dumplings. This soup features grouper, a highly prized fish in China and Hong Kong, in the form of dumplings. Although called dumplings, they have a soft, fluffy texture, similar to fish cakes or quenelles. They pair perfectly with the light and gentle-tasting soup.
The stir-fried lobster, mochi, and quinoa with Chinese miso sauce has a rich and savory flavor, which is brought together by the lobster and fried quinoa, resulting in a well-defined taste. The smooth texture of the accompanying mochi also makes this a delightful dish.
This spicy soy sauce stir-fry of beef sirloin, mushrooms, chili peppers, and black garlic features perfectly cooked bite-sized pieces of Wagyu beef. For an extra touch, try it with black garlic that has been roasted until it becomes a paste; the sweetness and umami flavors blend together beautifully.
The shrimp, sea cucumber, and scallop shrimp soup rice is a completely new taste! Toasted rice floats in a light soup, and it's like a Chinese-style ochazuke (rice with tea) that you can easily sip from the refreshing seafood broth.
There were two desserts. The coconut milk served in a papaya bowl was served in a hollowed-out papaya, and you drank the coconut milk soup from it. Eating it while scraping the inside of the papaya with a spoon was so comforting that I couldn't stop eating. Even though I was completely full, I managed to finish off the glutinous rice bun filled with red bean paste.
It was a valuable opportunity to learn about the current state of Chinese cuisine from the chefs invited by China Room. I'm looking forward to next year.
Chisa Nakajima
Daili, aka Editor N, is the editor-in-chief of Premium Japan. He loves watching Japanese movies from the 1950s and 60s and drinking wine. He's a bit of an otaku whose hobby is collecting postwar women's magazines.
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