Louwailou Restaurant On West Lake, Hangzhou

Hangzhou’s Louwailou (樓外樓) is one of China’s most renowned restaurants. Located on a scenic corner of West Lake, it is also one of the most beautiful. Equally famous are restaurant’s two signature dishes: Beggar’s Chicken and West Lake Vinegar Fish. Together with other classic Hangzhou dishes, they make Louwailou an icon of the city. On my visit, naturally, I dropped by and tasted them for myself.

The origin of Beggar’s Chicken (叫化雞; jiao▪hua▪ji), so the story goes, is owed to a beggar who once caught a chicken but had no kitchen to cook it in. So he dug a hole in the ground and buried it with some burning coals. Hours later, when he took the chicken out of the ground, he discovered that the skin and feathers had stuck to the mud, which he easily removed, leaving a pile of moist and tender meat that he quickly devoured because it was so good.

At Louwailou, a whole young chicken is first wrapped in caul fat and then lotus leaf, and then baked in a mud crust. Upon serving, waiter removes the mud and unwraps the package before everyone’s eyes. What you find inside is a delicate chicken so moist that with a little effort with the chopsticks, the meats fall entirely off the bones. And the flavor is light and floral, with scents of lotus leaf and soy sauce permeating the surrounding air.

West Lake Vinegar Fish (西湖醋魚; xi▪hu▪cu▪yu) is perhaps the quintessential Hangzhou dish. After all, it is named after the lake for which the city is renowned. The fish is a carp raised right there in the lake, split lengthwise and poached, not boiled, so as to preserve a tenderness as soft as whipped cream. A sweet and sour sauce made from Zhenjiang black vinegar is poured on top. The flavors are light and delicate, without weighty extras like oils and spices that can easily destroy the natural characteristics of the fish. Most amazingly, the grass-feeding carp does not have that earthy taste that makes most carp dishes so unappetizing.

I ordered two other dishes The first was fresh spinach braised in broth, fried garlic, and dried freshwater shrimp. It was a sumptuous vegetable dish that matches well with the meat dishes. The second was a noodle soup with fried “eel,” which is actually loach. The juliennes of loach, battered and fried, are sweet and crispy. They complement the firm thick noodles quite well.

Hangzhou’s dishes, I discovered, are remarkably mellow in flavor. This is the single characteristic that distinguishes Hangzhou cooking from nearby Shanghai, which tends to be oily and heavily seasoned. If I were to pick between the two, I would choose Hangzhou every time.

Louwailou is located right on West Lake, at 30 Gu▪shan Road
樓外樓 -- 杭州市西湖孤山路 30號