The Dining Guide complimented Master Wang’s Chinese Kitchen
A restaurant that opened this year, Master Wang’s Chinese Kitchen, is the most likely to be awarded with the honorable title of the Best Chinese Restaurant of Budapest.
The imaginary prize would either way stay in the same hand. The owners of New Lanzhou restaurant in Fő Street, popular amongst lovers of Asian food,opened a new restaurant in Ferencváros district concentrating this time on flavors of the Sichuan cuisine.
One of the four main branches of the Chinese cuisine, the Sichuan one is considered to be too spicy even by many Chinese people. As the local saying goes, “one goes to China to eat, but goes to Sichuan for the flavors”. Newly arrived Chinese cooks in Budapest might be aware of this, and use considerably less spices that they used to in China. In a completely incomprehensible way, meals almost entirely miss the Sichuan pepper, the most basic ingredient of the Sichuan Cuisine, which triggers a very characteristic tingling sensation in the mouth. However that is where the list of the restaurant’s mistakes ends.
The appetizer, pig ear bites, only differs from its Hungarian equivalent in the hot spice powder which is served with the jelly bites. The latter dipped into the former gives a perfect taste, even if these bites could be considered at first as some bizarre savory snacks. Not many people know that there are also very good cold cuts in China, for them the homemade Sichuan sausage flavored with star anise,cumin and ginger could be a good surprise. For the Hungarian taste, meat products prepared without the use of paprika are always strange at the beginning, however this slightly sweet, almost Mediterranean-like sausage make everyone quickly forget about the feeling of strangeness.
The precisely named appetizing celery prepared with soy and vinegar is not especially exotic, but makes a great side dish for the main course. The chef’s recommendations are the best to choose from the traditionally long menu of a Chinese restaurant. Rabbit legs in a hot oily marinade make a perfect Chinese game meat with its strong flavor and hot spices. Similarly seasoned, but perhaps better prepared were the spare ribs. The Chinese cuisine prefers pork to beef and this meal shows us the reason why.
There are less than five restaurants in Budapest that can prepare bone-in meat as well as Master Wang’s Chinese Kitchen. However, the best is their lamb, a specialty of North China, that again, any top restaurant could be proud of, with the exception that Chinese chefs know very well, that one should not be afraid of a greasier meat. Even if it is not the most pleasant to chew, it is necessary to fully enjoy the flavor.
Master Wang’s Chinese Kitchen is not only the best Chinese restaurant in Budapest, but simply one of its best restaurants.