Pod Insights The Sporkful What Happened When China Legalized Restaurants About this episode In the 1980s and ‘90s, China went through a massive economic transformation. New government policies allowed everyday people to open their own businesses and accumulate wealth
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:17 Dan Pashman? There's oat and green pepper sauce, dried scallop and shiitake mushroom sauce, fermented tofu sauce, mashed garlic, chopped chives. Do you have a specific combination here, Wei Hang, that you like, that you do?
1:28 Speaker 01 Hot pots, flavor is heavy, so I use less extra sauce, actually.
1:34 Dan Pashman? I want Wei Hang's signature sauce.
1:36 Speaker 01 Ah, okay, I got it.
1:40 Dan Pashman? Oh, I'm blocking the robot, sorry, sorry, bud.
1:49 Dan Pashman? This is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. Earlier this year, I got the opportunity to go to Beijing to speak at a podcasting conference organized through NYU. Recently, there's been an explosion of interest in podcasts, so they wanted me to talk about the craft of making podcasts, booking guests, and interviewing people. I had never been anywhere in Asia, so obviously, this was a very exciting opportunity, not just to connect with aspiring podcasters, but also to eat. So today, we're kicking off back-to-back episodes recorded on my trip to China and Japan. This week, we're focusing on China's restaurant scene, which didn't even exist 40 years ago.
2:30 Dan Pashman? When Chairman Mao died in 1976, China was one of the poorest countries on the planet. The government was struggling just to feed everyone. For a long time, all restaurants in China were government-owned, and they weren't intended for a nice night out with friends. They were mostly canteens for communal eating, focused on craking out enough food just to keep people from starving. But in the 80s and 90s, the Chinese economy slowly opened up. The government began allowing private ownership of restaurants, which grew at an incredible pace. Today, China has a vibrant and varied restaurant scene. We're gonna tell you the stories of two very different places, with help from a couple of people.
3:06 Speaker 01 You can call me Wei Hang or Li Wei Hang or Wei Hang Li.
3:11 Dan Pashman? Wei Hang Li is a food writer and podcaster based in Beijing. She mostly covers fine dining. She has her finger on the pulse of the ever-changing food scene in Beijing, and she's also very fashionable. When I meet her, I notice that she's wearing these pink acrylic earrings. Each one is in the shape of a uterus, giving the middle finger. I'm also joined by Yabu Ji, an audio producer who was born and raised in China and now lives in New York. After a few years producing a show known as The This American Life of China, she went to NYU for a master's degree in audio journalism. Yabu is also the host of the podcasting conference that brought me to China.
3:43 Speaker 02 Do I have to be in?
3:45 Dan Pashman? No, you don't have to be. But you're kind of already are.
3:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
3:48 Dan Pashman? Like many audio producers I know, Yabu prefers to stay off the mic. But she and Wei Hang are my guides for this episode, so you're gonna hear a lot from both of them. Sorry, Yabu. Our first stop is dinner at a place called Chef 1996. So we're just at the entrance to Chef 1996, and they have like a little fire with a grill on top. And what are these tangerines?
4:13 Speaker 02 Just oranges.
4:14 Dan Pashman? Orange.
4:14 Speaker 02 I can say it can help you protect your throat and like cure all the sourness of your throat if you like keep talking like you did today.
4:26 Dan Pashman? Like I do. Yabu, what do you think?
4:29 Speaker 02 Just a warm orange. But I would say it tastes better because it's really cold outside.
4:34 Dan Pashman? Right, right.
4:35 Speaker 02 It's very like warm welcoming, literally warm welcoming.
4:38 Dan Pashman? On one hand, you're right, Yabu. It's just a warm orange, a hot orange. But also, it's really different.
4:44 Speaker 02 Yes.
4:45 Dan Pashman? From a cold orange.
4:46 Speaker 02 Yes.
4:47 Dan Pashman? Wei Hang, what do you think?
4:50 Speaker 01 Welcome.
4:52 Dan Pashman? Yeah. All right. Well, I feel welcome. Let's go. We walk inside. Chef 1996 is a Michelin-selected restaurant on the outskirts of the Chaoyang District of Beijing. Before we sit down to eat, we get a tour of the restaurant. There are these giant glass jars filled with pickles and hot peppers on display, huge cuts of meat aging in a window, and tons of framed photos and articles. So along the walls, we have like the history of the restaurant.
5:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, I do think it's so cool, so you can see. Are the restaurants...
5:21 Dan Pashman? The story goes like this. Wang Gong came from Sichuan Province in southern China. When he turned 16, he moved to Beijing. This was in the 80s, just as China's new leader, Deng Xiaoping, was starting to make economic reforms in the country. Restaurants were slowly opening, and Wang found work as a cook. The May 80s were a heady time to be in Beijing. Just as Deng Xiaoping was making economic reforms, he was also enacting political reforms, which made it possible for pro-democracy protesters to organize and march, which was not what Deng had in mind when he started his reforms. The government cracked down. In 1989, many of these protesters were massacred in Tiananmen Square. A lot of citizens began losing faith in the government. The Tiananmen Square story was too big for the government to sweep under the rug,
6:06 Dan Pashman? and Deng Xiaoping needed to do something. In 1992, he announced that economic reforms were back on, and the country would be opening up in ways it never had before. Suddenly, you could do more than just open a small business. You could borrow money, hire staff, open a second location. Investments started flowing into cities, and young people started moving to those cities from the countryside in search of opportunity. Here's Wei Hong.
6:29 Speaker 01 This moment, China develops very quickly. People get much more money, and they have better lives. So they need much more better restaurants.
6:41 Dan Pashman? Wang Gong was learning how to cook and run a restaurant right in the middle of this economic transformation. Then he experienced a different kind of transformation. While working as a chef, he met Liang Di, a waitress at the restaurant. She was also from Sichuan Province.
6:56 Speaker 01 Always chefs cannot to meet more girls. They just hang around in the kitchen. To meet the maybe waitress.
7:10 Dan Pashman? Soon after they got together, Wong got his big break.
7:12 Speaker 01 One important people came to eat here and think, oh, the restaurant is so good. You guys do the really good job. If you want, you can do better and I will give you the opportunities. It's like all the officials.
7:25 Dan Pashman? Government officials. So they came to eat at the first restaurant Mr. Wong was working at. They said, we like what you're doing here. The food's really good. You should start your own place.
7:35 Speaker 01 The government also need more smart, young people.
7:40 Dan Pashman? Oh, interesting. So they wanted him to be an example of like, oh, follow this guy's lead. This is what we want you to be doing. Wei Hang gestures to a framed paper on the wall.
7:48 Speaker 01 This is very important. This is the paper about how they opened the first restaurant in 1996.
7:55 Dan Pashman? In order to open up his own place, Wong needed a letter from officials in his hometown.
7:59 Speaker 01 They said, we agree with Mr. Wong to open his own business and hope Beijing can support it.
8:09 Dan Pashman? So this is an official declaration like on the letterhead from the Sichuanese government, local officials and saying, you know, we support him getting his own, his own business.
8:18 Speaker 01 Can you imagine? Just you want to open your own business. You need to let your hometown's government to allow.
8:26 Speaker 02 Recommendation letters from the government.
8:29 Dan Pashman? Wong and Liang Di got married and opened a restaurant in Beijing called Meiju Dongpo in 1996. They were among the first to bring spicy Sichuanese food from the south of China to Beijing in the north. Di, now known as Chef Di, is the head chef here at this restaurant. And I'm able to grab a few minutes to talk with her. She's sort of a local legend in her industry. Yabu and Wei Hang later told me that the fact that she came out and talked with me was a pretty big deal. I was curious to ask her about the early days of their restaurants, introducing people in Beijing to Sichuanese flavors. What, what do you think was the reason why it was so successful so quickly?
9:07 Speaker 02 菜好吃 Good food.
9:10 Dan Pashman? 就是食物一定要 I guess that that's the
9:12 Speaker 02 That explains everything.
9:13 Dan Pashman? universal rule of restaurants, right?
9:15 Speaker 02 That's
9:16 Dan Pashman? And I mean, in in New York, Sichuanese food is like one of the most popular, one of the hot growing types of Chinese food, as you know, from living there.
9:24 Speaker 02 Yeah.
9:25 Dan Pashman? Yeah.
9:26 Speaker 02 Do you want to know why?
9:27 Dan Pashman? Why?
9:27 Speaker 02 Why people? 对，为什么就海外华人也很爱吃川菜？
9:31 Speaker 03 因为 其实很简单，就是他过瘾嘛，就是他辣了以后，他就会就是那种精神的那种，就一下就会就会就会那种像 炸裂一样那种感受，就就很清醒的那样，啊
9:46 Dan Pashman? I feel like the facial expressions and hand gestures of that were were basically like because you put it in your mouth and it tastes so good and there's so many flavors.
9:53 Speaker 02 And spice is not a flavor, it's like a bitterness, it's like a relaxation, so
9:56 Dan Pashman? A sensation.
10:00 Speaker 02 so she said it's it's yes, it's people.
10:03 Speaker 01 Strong flavor makes people feel satisfied.
10:10 Dan Pashman? Eventually, Wong and Chef D created the Meijudongpo Restaurant Group, which grew alongside China's middle class. Today, the group includes a hundred and fourteen restaurants in mainland China and four in the US. They also have a line of packaged foods. Wong stepped away from the daily operations a few years ago. Now Chef D serves as CEO of the group while also working as head chef here at Chef 1996, which opened just a few years ago. Unlike most of their restaurants, this one goes all in on fine dining. It was just added to the list of Asia's fifty best restaurants from the organization that does World's Fifty Best Restaurants. This place is so fancy that almost every table is in its own private room with its own sitting area in addition to the dining table.
10:51 Dan Pashman? Every room has a frosted glass door, you press a button and it slides open silently. Dining here costs the equivalent of about a hundred and fifty dollars per person, but when you adjust for cost of living, it's more like going out in the US and spending three hundred dollars a person. There's a growing number of fine dining restaurants in cities across China now, and they're not just for wealthy foreigners. These places are popular for Chinese professionals who want to go out for a date night or celebration. We're escorted to our room where I meet Jiadi Wong, daughter of Mr. Wong and Chef D. She's joining Wei Hung, Yabu and me for dinner. Well, cheers. Cheers. Thank you, thank you. We sit down at the table where I see the tasting menu in store. Three pages, 16 courses. But before any of them arrive,
11:35 Dan Pashman? I just want to make sure I have in the recording that a man in a suit, wearing literal, actual white gloves, just came in with a tray of like vegetables and herbs and chilies to present them all to us.
11:46 Speaker 02 Like demonstrating like antiques or.
11:49 Dan Pashman? Yeah, which was, that was like amazing. I loved that. And the white gloves are a really nice touch. The courses start coming. There's beef shank, tripe and tongue piled in a mound in a bright red broth of Sichuan numbing spices. There's a salad of cured pork and shredded Chinese radish and greens. Then there's something Jiadi calls a chicken salad.
12:10 Speaker 04 When you take one chopstick from it, you will have all the ingredients together. And you must taste all three ingredients together.
12:19 Dan Pashman? The chicken, the onions and the chilies.
12:21 Speaker 04 Yeah.
12:21 Dan Pashman? And like people in America will hear chicken salad and they'll think like mayonnaise. But that's not even, that's nothing, nothing like what this is. But yes, the flavor of the onions with the chilies together is like really unique. You said your mom invented this?
12:38 Speaker 04 I think so.
12:39 Dan Pashman? We'll go with that. We will, we're going to that whiskey house. Yeah. I'm curious to ask Jiadi why her mom wanted to try her hand at fine dining for the first time.
12:48 Speaker 04 I think if you ask my mom, she will have a different answer. But since you asked me, I think in my opinion, the reason she opened this restaurant because she really need this. And she loves to study into fine dining. And she's never done fine dining before, but I think an opportunity came, she, she wanted to challenge herself. I think this is her dream. Yeah.
13:19 Dan Pashman? You said that's your answer. What would her answer be?
13:21 Speaker 04 Her answer would be more official.
13:25 Speaker 02 Official, modest.
13:27 Speaker 04 Yeah, for, for the company. Well, she feels like you, you kind of need this kind of restaurant to boost up the branding of the company. But I think the real reason is she loves this. She just wanted to do this. Yeah.
13:47 Dan Pashman? As soon as Giotti finishes this thought, more food arrives. Many of the courses involve a giant cart being wheeled into our dining room with some fanfare. One has a platter of smoked meats so big and varied it would put any Texas barbecue place to shame. So now we've moved on to this incredible assortment of smoked meats that is being carved paper-thin for us. Each one has a different condiment to put on it. What's interesting to me as we go through all these incredible courses is like you're saying, it's not, yes, this restaurant started as Sichuanese, but it's, it's not like it's just serving like the classics, right? It's not just like, oh, it's not just traditional Sichuanese. It's like inspired by that, but then it's combining Beijing flavors and other inspiration to create something that's like really unique.
14:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, this is very modern, but the way to make it is based on tradition.
14:37 Dan Pashman? Right. Right. The courses keep coming, one after another.
14:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, just like rice sandwiches, the made it.
14:46 Dan Pashman? Little tiny like fried sandwiches, rice. Oh, that's right. Oh, my God. I gotta, I gotta, we gotta eat this. This looks too good. You can hear the rustling as I frantically put my recorder down so I can pick up my chopsticks. Priorities. Each dish somehow seems better than the last. All right. So a couple of minutes ago, they brought in like the most beautiful wagyu beef you ever seen and cooked it in broth with green Sichuan peppercorns. It was incredible. Now, this tea-smoked duck situation just came out like under a giant glass full of steam and smoke, and they lifted it up and there's tea-smoked duck underneath. How did they, in Sichuan, they would do it?
15:25 Speaker 01 In very local way, just they don't have the crispy skin, just have some tea-smoked flavor.
15:32 Dan Pashman? So the tea-smoking is Sichuanese, but the sort of, but it's cooked here like sort of in a Peking duck style. So it's sort of like fusion between these two regional styles. Right. And you're saying, yeah, but that's part of sort of how they got into
15:47 Speaker 01 The market.
15:47 Dan Pashman? The Beijing market by sort of, it's like a little familiar, but also more upscale and different.
15:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly.
15:54 Dan Pashman? Oh mercy. The skin on this duck is impossibly thin and crispy. The meat perfectly tender, a little smoky. And then there's like an orange marmalade on the side for a tiny dip of your bite before you eat it. In my nine days in Beijing and Tokyo, that tea smoked duck was the single best thing I ate.
16:14 Dan Pashman? Between bites, we have more time to chat. Jiadi is in her twenties and works for the restaurant group. But her path to her job wasn't a straight line. When she was growing up, she felt like her parents' first restaurant was another child to them. One that got a lot of attention.
16:27 Speaker 04 Why they're not home? Why are they always out there with work? Why is the restaurant so important to them? And I'm just home alone.
16:39 Dan Pashman? They always expected that eventually she'd work with the family's restaurants.
16:42 Speaker 04 I grew up with my parents saying, "You will do this. You will do this, and you must do this." And I think me myself is a kind of a little... 叛逆怎么说来着?
16:57 Dan Pashman? Rebellious?
16:58 Speaker 04 Rebellious. Rebellious girl.
17:00 Dan Pashman? Jiadi wanted to be an artist and spent a few years early on trying to make it as one. But it was a struggle. So her mom approached her again about joining the business.
17:09 Speaker 04 She came to me and she talked to me about this again and again. And then my feelings changed. My feelings are very different to like a child. And I just, I feel so sorrow for her. And I wanted to do something for her. And that's how I started.
17:30 Dan Pashman? Now Jiadi manages two of her family's other restaurants. She's come to understand why this industry is so demanding. Why it took so much of her parents' time.
17:40 Dan Pashman? After more courses, including Kung Pao prawns with charred chilies, Mapo tofu, and Dan Dan noodles, I am stuffed. And it's time for dessert. But the dessert that arrives isn't the one that was printed on the menu. Wei Hang feels like she's got to prepare me for this one.
17:58 Speaker 02 By bird nest.
18:00 Dan Pashman? Bird nest. I don't think so. Is that what this is?
18:03 Speaker 02 Do you want to know what exactly it is?
18:05 Dan Pashman? Sure, yeah, tell me.
18:06 Speaker 02 It's swallow swallow the bird.
18:08 Dan Pashman? Right.
18:09 Speaker 02 Swallows saliva.
18:12 Dan Pashman? Alright.
18:13 Speaker 02 Yeah, when they nesting, right? They use their saliva to create the nest for their.
18:18 Dan Pashman? How do you collect that?
18:20 Speaker 02 Well, they have like professionals to collect that.
18:22 Dan Pashman? Professional swallow saliva collectors?
18:24 Speaker 02 People to harvest. It has been seen as one of the most precious kind of ingredient.
18:31 Dan Pashman? This is like very special.
18:33 Speaker 02 Very special, very expensive, very hard to get. And it's only like royal people, like people who live in palace enjoy this kind of food.
18:41 Dan Pashman? I guess that's us today then, huh, Yebu? So the dish is called bird's nest, but it's more like a soup with little crispy bits, almost like katafi. But it turns out those are hardened bits of saliva. Male swallow saliva firms up on exposed air, which is how the nests hold their shape. The smaller bits turn soft in the soup, giving the broth a gelatinous texture. Honestly, it's unlike anything I've ever eaten and it's really good. Lightly sweet, a little thick, like I said, with those crispy bits. As I think back on it, I'm a little sad that I'll probably never get to eat it again. Then comes another off-menu dessert. Is it a black sesame?
19:19 Speaker 02 Yes.
19:19 Dan Pashman? Oh, man. I love black sesame.
19:24 Dan Pashman? Wait, is it tangyuan?
19:25 Speaker 02 Tangyuan, yeah.
19:26 Dan Pashman? I know, yes, I know tangyuan.
19:30 Dan Pashman? I haven't had tangyuan in about ten years, so it took me a minute to place it. It's soft, chewy, glutenous rice balls with various fillings, in this case, my absolute fave, black sesame. The rice balls are served in a light, warm, syrupy broth, and this one is insane. I mean, and that was one of the most, the lightest, softest, most delicate rice balls that I've ever had. Would it be crazy for me to ask them for another black sesame rice ball?
19:59 Speaker 02 It's just a tangyuan without the.
20:01 Dan Pashman? Yeah, just one little, because it was so good, I need to. Yes, I have one more glutenous rice ball filled with black sesame. They're too good.
20:13 Dan Pashman? As I head back to my hotel and reflect on the meal, the word that comes to mind is rootedness. This wasn't like, "Oh, we turned smoked duck into foam," like the molecular gastronomy people would do. And it also wasn't like this, "We found this ancient tree bark and fermented it for six years to make it edible." It was just extremely refined, well-done versions of the foods and ingredients of these regions, with thoughtful tweaks or additions. But it was still rooted in the real foods of the place that people here actually eat. Coming up, I'll visit another restaurant in China that couldn't have existed 40 years ago. But this one's radically different from the first. It's an incredibly popular hot pot chain called Heidi Lao. It's part restaurant, part entertainment venue, and part spa? That's coming up. Stick around.
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24:48 Dan Pashman? Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. And heads up, Boston, we have finalized the lineup for our live show there on May 1st. They put a question up on Instagram asking you who your first choice guest would be. And the overwhelming response was Reporter Matt. So guess who's coming? Reporter Matt! But that's not all. I'll also be joined by Irene Shang Lee of Mei Mei Dumplings and Ian Callis from WGBH. He did that Codfather story with us recently. He'll join us with a new story about monkfish. That's May 1st at WBUR City Space in Boston. Get info and tickets at sporkful.com/live. All right, back to the show. And by the way, if you want to see pics and videos of everything you hear me eating and experiencing in this episode, I'm going to be posting a bunch of stuff to Instagram this week.
25:32 Dan Pashman? Follow me there at TheSporkful. Also, a quick heads up, there's a bit of explicit language in this section. The day after my meal at Chef 1996, Yabu and I go to Heidi Lao. We would soon be joined by Wei Hung and others. Heidi Lao is a chain of hot pot restaurants that has over 1,300 locations across China and tends to draw big groups for a fun night out.
25:55 Dan Pashman? All right, Yabu, Friday night at Heidi Lao. What do you say? You're rolling your eyes.
25:59 Speaker 02 No, no, no. I'm back to my normal mode. I love it. Look around.
26:05 Dan Pashman? Wait, what mode were you in a minute ago?
26:07 Speaker 02 I'm tired.
26:09 Dan Pashman? Yebu's been running around for the past three days overseeing this whole conference, so she's got a right to feel worn down. But walking into Heidi Lao provides me with a shot of adrenaline. So, this is a gigantic restaurant. It almost feels like the floor of a Las Vegas casino. There must be several hundred seats in here. The walls are all gigantic screens all around us. Currently splattered in happy birthday signs and hearts and balloons floating up. Among the flashing screens and ring lights and the balloons are other surprises. What are these robots doing, though?
26:46 Speaker 02 They are like designating the dishes and like preparing the dishes, I think.
26:51 Dan Pashman? The robots prepare the dishes?
26:52 Speaker 02 I think so.
26:53 Dan Pashman? Oh man, we're all doomed, Yebu.
26:55 Speaker 02 I know, right? Doomed by Chinese, whatever is a Chinese human or Chinese robot.
27:00 Dan Pashman? Right, so the robots are reaching in, there's just like stacks and stacks of containers, like-
27:05 Speaker 02 Ingredients.
27:06 Dan Pashman? Ingredients, and they're-
27:07 Speaker 02 Like, this is lamb thing, oh, this is span.
27:10 Dan Pashman? There's a tray and a conveyor belt, and the robot pulls out the different meats and veggies that is going to a different hot pot table. And let me tell you, there's a lot more to Heidi Lao than just the food. As soon as we sit down at the table, my name is called. Just like that, Yebu and I are off to a different area.
27:25 Speaker 02 So this is the famous signature service that Heidi Lao provides you, is you can do your nails here, where I have to control myself not to say hand chop, but to do your hands. Cut that. To do your hands here.
27:43 Dan Pashman? Is that the like literal Chinese translation of getting the nails done?
27:47 Speaker 02 Yes, exactly. So, maybe you are next.
27:52 Dan Pashman? I've never gotten my nails done, and as I learn, neither has Yebu. So this can be a special experience for both of us. We sit down in chairs next to each other and begin by getting hand massages. When we talked about the fact that we're gonna come to Heidi Lao, you said you'd be a little bit embarrassed to come with me.
28:08 Speaker 02 Yeah.
28:09 Dan Pashman? Why?
28:09 Speaker 02 Not with you, just-
28:12 Speaker 02 I think you will see, you will see. I think Haider Lau more focus on performances, like the aura they are creating, like a Disneyland kind of atmosphere.
28:23 Dan Pashman? Right, the screens, the anime showing in this stadium seating waiting room, getting your nails done.
28:28 Speaker 02 Don't let your glass be empty. It's just like they pour one drink after one drink and after one drink. And just this kind of like satisfactions they want to, like they stuffed into you.
28:40 Dan Pashman? It's like over the top service.
28:42 Speaker 02 Over the top.
28:43 Dan Pashman? So you're a little embarrassed to come here just because it's like such an over the top spectacle?
28:49 Speaker 02 Yes, yes, and I just told you like before, I'm such a big people observer, like a people watching lover. So I always like constantly my focus on the people around me, not on the food. So when I'm having Haider Lau, it's always like, oh, that table is having a birthday. Look at their faces, are they awkward? Or look at the new deals like Haider Lau is doing right now. So yeah, it's never about the food. And I don't think, maybe I shouldn't say this out loud, but I don't, I don't think they have very good flavor. It's very like mediocre because it's satisfied everybody.
29:26 Dan Pashman? Am I trying to get my nails done, huh? I can understand that, and yet, when I look around, people are having such a good time. In some ways, it reminds me of Benihana, you know, the kind of place you go with a big group to celebrate something. Where the food comes with a sort of show. This show is turned up to eleven.
29:41 Speaker 02 And they have like a very iconic birthday song. That now a lot of young people replace that with a traditional birthday song. So you will hear that probably later.
29:50 Dan Pashman? Can we tell them that someone at our table is having a birthday?
29:53 Speaker 02 Yes, because it's huge, it's a center of attention.
29:57 Dan Pashman? Whose birthday should we tell them it is, even though it's nobody's birthday?
30:00 Speaker 02 Uh, yours?
30:03 Dan Pashman? I think it should be yours.
30:04 Speaker 02 Well, no.
30:05 Dan Pashman? I'm gonna make you enjoy Haider Lau. You are gonna be filled with the joy of Haider Lau before this night is over, Yabu.
30:10 Speaker 02 If you think I have done anything right during your trip, please treat me wise. Please treat me good. I don't want to be the center of anything.
30:17 Dan Pashman? But Yabu was withholding something from me, as I learned from others in our group two days before, it really was her birthday. I knew I had to give Yabu the special birthday celebration that she didn't want. Sorry again, Yabu.
30:34 Dan Pashman? The cultural force that is Haider Lau can't be ignored, to the point that, as Yabu said, young people there have replaced the traditional birthday song with the one they hear at Haider Lau. The person who started it all is Zhang Yang. Zhang opened the first Haider Lau in 1994 in Sichuan province. Like with Mr. Wong and Chef Di from Meijudongpo Group, he started at a time when restaurants in China were really beginning to take off. He soon expanded, eventually coming to Beijing. Haider Lau kept growing and growing. By 2018, Zhang was a billionaire. For most of Haider Lau's story, I spoke with Jason Tang, a food Instagrammer and podcast host who's really tapped into the restaurant scene in Beijing. He told me that as Haider Lau was expanding, it was getting a little bit too successful. Zhang was likely concerned that the Chinese government would want to get involved,
31:18 Dan Pashman? maybe take a stake in the business or crack down on them in some way. Zhang listed Haider Lau on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, so the company would have international shareholders who would resist any Chinese government attempt to get a piece of their pie. And he moved to Singapore, as many Chinese billionaires have. And to be clear, Zhang has never said on the record that he made these moves because of the Chinese government. In any event, the chain's mark on the culture is undeniable. And tonight, Haider Lau is rockin'. At our table, Yabu and I are joined by Wei Hang and others from our podcast and conference group. As our food starts arriving, I turn to Wei Hang to tell me what everything is. She's wearing her trademark earrings, each one a uterus given the fingering.
31:57 Speaker 02 This, how to say this?
31:58 Dan Pashman? Middle finger.
31:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, so fuck you, man.
32:04 Speaker 02 This whole...
32:07 Speaker 02 Sorry.
32:10 Dan Pashman? Wei Hang, I just want to review all the different things that we have been putting into our different hot pots. I don't remember.
32:20 Dan Pashman? There are multiple pots of bubbling broth in the center of the table. Different flavors and spice levels, whatever you pick. Then there's an assortment of meats, fish, tofu, veggies. You pick up a piece of something with your chopsticks and hold it in the bubbling broth for as long as you want. In the case of the meat, long enough to cook it.
32:37 Dan Pashman? Let me, so I saw there was mushrooms.
32:39 Speaker 01 Yes.
32:39 Dan Pashman? There was seaweed. There's a tripe, which is beef stomach. There's vegan imitation beef tripe. There's tofu skin. There's fried tofu skin. There's shrimp balls. There's beef and pork.
32:55 Speaker 01 Yes, you are right. And different tofu make, tofu product.
33:00 Dan Pashman? We got our shots of Baijiu. We have beer.
33:02 Speaker 01 Yeah. And we had, we had the sauce what we made.
33:06 Dan Pashman? Right. Is there anything else that has been going in there? Into the, in the broth that I forgot? Oh, what, what is that thing called again?
33:13 Speaker 01 Lotus slice.
33:15 Dan Pashman? Lotus?
33:15 Speaker 01 Slice Lotus.
33:17 Dan Pashman? Oh.
33:17 Speaker 01 Lotus root, actually.
33:18 Dan Pashman? Right, okay. Hot pot is very communal. Everyone's reaching over each other to grab different pieces and dunk them in different broths. It's a style of eating that fits perfectly with a restaurant built for group celebrations. That said, I haven't eaten as much hot pot as Yebu in my life, but I do feel like while it's all good, none of the food blows my mind. What does blow my mind is the atmosphere, which continues to escalate to ever higher levels of absurdity. We order hand-pulled noodles, which are brought to the table by a guy in a red Adidas tracksuit, who proceeds to stretch the noodles by waving them over his head, snapping them in our faces, and all but using them to jump rope.
33:58 Dan Pashman? Then comes a Chinese face-changing guy. This comes from Sichuan opera, but Heidi Lao has helped bring it to the masses. This guy is dressed in an ornate, traditional costume with a mask completely covering his face. The facial expression of the mask is a little scary. He walks around the restaurant glowering at each table, periodically covers his face with a fan for a split second. When he moves the fan away, the mask covering his face has completely changed to a new expression with new colors. It's like magic.
34:28 Dan Pashman? I think maybe there's also a band playing at the far end of the room. It's getting hard to isolate where any noise is coming from. But there's still one part of Heidi Lao that I haven't experienced.
34:38 Speaker 02 Today's birthday, right?
34:40 Dan Pashman? Yes.
34:40 Speaker 02 We must let her to take her birthday, right?
34:43 Dan Pashman? Did Ellen tell the people who work here that it's Yabu's birthday?
34:47 Speaker 02 Not yet. I will tell them.
34:48 Dan Pashman? OK, make sure they know.
34:50 Speaker 02 Of course.
34:50 Dan Pashman? See if maybe they can make an extra big...
34:52 Speaker 02 And surprise.
34:54 Dan Pashman? Yes. Do you think Yabu will be angry?
34:58 Speaker 02 It's OK.
35:02 Dan Pashman? Then, the moment arrives. Everyone is excited. Well, almost everyone.
35:11 Dan Pashman? Come on, Yabu.
35:36 Dan Pashman? Yabu tries her best to show us how uncomfortable she is, but... Yabu, I think that about two-thirds of the way through, you gave in.
35:44 Speaker 02 I did.
35:47 Dan Pashman? In this moment, Yabu kind of reminds me of Chef D. She claims she gave in to the birthday celebration out of a sense of duty for everyone else. But I think, deep down, she did it because she wanted to. Heidi Lau is kind of irresistible. Yabu, how did you feel about this experience?
36:05 Speaker 02 Um, I had my first nail done. I had my first birthday party in public. And what else I can ask? It's perfect. Thank you.
36:16 Dan Pashman? All right. How do you say cheers again?
36:31 Dan Pashman? Throughout my time in Beijing, I was struck by how new everything seemed. On a tour of the city's narrow alleyways, our guide pointed out some stone carvings around a door. And I said, "How old is that?" And he said, "About 70 years." And I was like, "70 years? Where's the stuff that's 1,000 years old?" Part of it is that during Mao's Cultural Revolution of the 60s and 70s, huge parts of the city were razed. It was a push against anything old, a move towards modernization. But it's also that China has grown at such a breakneck pace over the past few decades. A lot of it is new. Many people in their 30s told me their parents could never have imagined the thriving restaurant scene of today back when they were kids, just trying to get enough to eat. The night before I leave Beijing, I go out to eat with Wei Hang and Yebu one more time.
37:17 Dan Pashman? Yebu says that when the Chinese economy opened up in the 80s and 90s, there was also a shift in mentality. Before that, if you were striving economically to do better for yourself and your family, it was seen as a betrayal of communist ideals. By trying to earn more money, you weren't helping the collective. When the economy opened up, a new thinking emerged, that it was okay to want more, to try to do better for yourself. In many respects, those reforms have worked. Today, the World Bank lists China's extreme poverty rate at effectively zero. But in all this striving, Yebu says something else has been lost.
37:49 Speaker 02 Everything you talk about before, like the food has grown hugely, the styles, the quantity, the quality has grown, and it's become super convenient. But that means no one is getting anything through their own hands, through their own heart. We just, we expect everything, our wishes, to be fulfilled in one second, but what are we actually wishing for? And a lot of the, a lot of the youngs, they live alone in big cities. They just stay away from their hometown. But usually, some youngs in big cities, they just eat alone. So eat alone is an opportunity for restaurants, but it's also a little bit lonely.
38:35 Dan Pashman? People moved to big cities to find better-paying jobs, opportunity. It seemed like the right path, maybe even the only path. And yet, a lot of them were unprepared and are still unprepared for so much change.
38:48 Speaker 02 In China, there are full of anxieties. It's like a puzzle game. Nobody knows what will happen next year. Nobody knows what will happen in 10 years. Chinese people are very practical. We like to plan. We like to stick to, stick into a comfort zone. But now, it's like, there's no comfort zone anymore. So it's a risk, and risk, we're not, we're not very used to live a risky life.
39:26 Dan Pashman? Thank you so, so much to Yebu Ji and Weihang Li for all of their amazing work, and to Jason Tang for talking to me for this episode. And thank you to Ellen Horn, Director of NYU's Podcasting and Audio Journalism Program, for organizing this trip and inviting me. It was a really, really special experience. Remember that if you want to see pics and videos of my time in China, follow me on Instagram @thesporful. One more quick note. When I was at Chef 1996, they served me that Bird's Nest Soup for dessert. I was convinced that I'd never be able to try this precious, rare dish ever again. Well, it turns out, you can get premium Bird's Nest Soup at Costco, although you'll have to get 16 jars of it. Yebu says they have this in China too, along with Bird's Nest drinks and supplements, but she says they're
40:09 Dan Pashman? pretty low quality with very little of the actual special ingredient. That, of course, didn't stop me from ordering some. I'll record my first taste and post it on Instagram. One final note, if you live in the US and want to try Heidi Lao, you're in luck. There are now locations in New York, Texas, California, Arizona, and Seattle. Next week on the show, our Asia trip continues. We explore recent tensions between China and Japan, which are playing out in the fishing trade. I'll find out how it's affecting restaurants and businesses in both countries. That's next week. While you're waiting for that one, check out last week's show with Ifra Ahmed, who's documenting Somali recipes and stories in her new cookbook, Somalia. We have an iftar dinner together, and she shows me a trick for making samboos that I will be using in my own cooking forever. And hey, did you know you can listen to The
40:54 Dan Pashman? Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful.
41:21 Dan Pashman? This episode was produced by me along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern. And senior producer
41:26 Speaker 07 Andres O'Hara.
41:27 Dan Pashman? It was edited by Camille Stanley. Our engineer is Jared O'Connell. And our intern is Morgan Johnson. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Sirius XM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman. And I'm Julia from Singapore, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
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