This is one of the six Michelin star restaurants in Hangzhou, and they were just awarded the accolade when the coveted list landed in city referred to as the heaven on earth.

Located near Longjing Village, Dragon Well Manor covers a vast area. Stepping into the gate and walking through the stone bridge and garden, you will arrive at individual halls and cottages named after the former generals. The environment is quiet and comfortable. The chef has rich experience and is good at cooking seasonal ingredients in traditional ways, presenting authentic and delicate Jiangnan cuisine.

“早采三天是个宝，迟采三天变成草”

Longjing tea quality (and price) really fluctuate based on the period of the picking. The period before Qingming Festival was the best, as the quality of tea was dependent on the temperature of the environment.

And then there’s the top notch quality ones before the rainy spell during the change of seasons. This tea was just that.

The ingredients are organic and pollution-free, and the dishes pay attention to the original flavours. And once everyone has settled down, the welcome drink of soy bean milk is served.

First, take a bowl of soy milk and add your own condiments. You would be surprised that besides sugar, there are soy sauce, chopped scallions, chopped preserved radish, crackers, dried shrimps and rose vinegar.

The locals like their soy bean milk salty, and I can understand why. The chopped preserved radish and the dried shrimps were not out of their places when you dropped them into the milk.

But Southerners like me prefer the soy milk sweet.

冷碟三味 Trio of Appetisers

The number of appetisers depends on the number of diners. Because we had only two of us (and yes, we had the whole study), we were served three different bits of appetisers.

The French are not the only ones that love the escargot. These water snails are raised for another important produce of the region, hairy crab. But they are very good eats themselves. Slight spicy and cooked with a salty soy sauce, the meat was crunchy and packed a punch.

Shredded Chinese celery was sautéed and then wrapped in bean curd skin and then deep fried. The result was a nice little appetiser that would be considered a street snack.

杭州熏鱼 Hangzhou smoked fish rounded up the trio of appetisers. Fish used was the freshwater carp. The pieces of fish are deep fried and the stewed in a heavy syrupy sauce. The result was these cubes of crunchiness with a red coating of caramelised sauce.

肴馔七品 Seven Main Courses

The dinner was made up of seven main courses that were the signatures and some seasonal courses.

金蝉银翎 “Golden Acadia Silver Wings”

Cordyceps cicadae is a parasitic fungus that consume the host body, and in this case, the cicada lava. Like its cousin the cordyceps sinensis, it is packed with medicinal properties and a nice flavour. And unlike its expensive cousin, this one is quite accessible to all.

Choose a three years old shelduck 麻鸭, remove innards and feet, add eight to ten cordyceps cicadae 金蝉花, put a little salt, and cover with thin parchment paper and steam it for four or five hours. And then 金蝉银翎 “Golden Cicada Silver Wings” is ready.

The end result was a flavourful bowl of double boiled soup that had a nice fragrance from the cordyceps, and a satisfying gaminess from the shelduck, which is more a goose than a duck.

老法刺参 Sea Cucumber Cooked in Traditional Method

The sea cucumber is an ingredient that has no flavour whatsoever and requires the accompanying sauce to make it edible.

The brown sauce was absolutely delicious, a sticky reduction of a very good stock. So in order not to waste it, they served a tiny bowl of steamed rice to go with it.

I had better use of the rice, eating it with the fermented tofu that came with the appetisers. The best accompaniment with the rice.

龙井虾仁 Dragon Well Tea Shrimps

Dragon Well Shrimps 龙井虾仁 is a representative of the 36 dishes that define Hangzhou cuisine. Using Longjing tea that was harvested before Qingming Festival (明前龙井茶), the shrimps have been deveined and cleaned thoroughly to give them their distinctly white colours. Coupled with the fragrance of the tea, the shrimps were sautéed with a very light seasoning so that sweetness of the river shrimps comes through and differentiated from the slight bitterness of the tea.

舍得 “Willingly”

The name of the dish in Chinese is made up of two characters – “舍” (shě) which is “to give up” and “得” (dé) which is “to gain”. When combined “舍得” is an emotion of generosity and giving willingly, the opposite being stingy or thrifty. This dish is made with seasonal vegetables like bokchoy and taking only the buds or the core of the stalk which are the softest and best part of the vegetable. They are then cooked in a superior stock. About 1kg of bokchoy will only yield around 300g of finished product.

The flavours came from the dried shiitake mushrooms and the largest dried shrimps I have seen so far. The stock was filled with umami from the mushroom and shrimp. And the blanched buds of the bokchoy was crispy and fresh.

红烧羊肚菌 Stuffed Morel Mushroom in Red Sauce

I love morel mushrooms, these were dried versions that were rehydrated. They stuffed the cavity of the morel with minced pork mixed with chopped water chestnut.

The brown sauce was similar to the ones for the sea cucumber though, so it felt like there was repeat of the same dish, except that the morel and pork combination was rather tasty.

象牙步鱼 Sautéed Fish Cheeks

This is course that the gourmand would call 老炮儿菜 or traditional flavour that is difficult to gert/replicate. According to a cookbook from the Qing Dynasty called《随园食单》(“Menus from Sui Garden”), Hangzhou has a long tradition of consuming these deep sleepers 土步鱼.

“杭州以土步鱼为上品,肉最松嫩。煎之，煮之，蒸之俱可。”

《随园食单》清 袁枚

To make a plate of this sautéed fish, at least 50 fish are used to get the flesh from the fish cheeks, which is the softest and tastiest. It is a real test to the chef as the texture is like tofu, a minute longer the meat will become hardened. This item is usually the best around Qingming Festival, which was only a fortnight away.

慈母菜 “Mother’s Cooking”

慈母菜 “Mother’s Cooking” is basically stewed pork belly with boiled eggs and originated from 湖州 Huzhou. It is said that in the old days, the son went out to study, the travel was not smooth and the communication was inconvenient. The time to return home in the letter was often delayed. The mother cooked the dish on time and steamed it again as she waited for the son’s return. It takes three days for the Manor to produce this dish, and it needs time to develop the flavours from the steaming again and again.

甜品 Dessert

After all the main courses had been served, the waitress would come and asked if you had enough to eat. And if you were still hungry (like I was), they would prepare another noodle dish, 片儿川 Hangzhou noodles.

片儿川 Hangzhou noodles is a typical noodle dish that students would take before their examinations. The noodle dish had its romanticised origins in the Song Dynasty, but the modern iteration was attributed to 奎元馆 Kuiyuan Restaurant in Hangzhou. To attract business from the students coming to Hangzhou for their provincial examination, the owner/chef added three eggs into the recipe to signify success in the examinations. And then someone got the top position, and the rest was history.

It was a small bowl, but the stock packed a punch. The sliced winter bamboo shoot with sliced pork were perfect withe the al dente noodles. The eggs were missing, instead there was a single quail egg. Small, but really satisfying.

Another Qingming Festival must-eat for the locals are these 青团 wormwood steamed buns. Wormwood is a plant commonly found in the wild and has medicinal properties. The juices of the leaves are mixed with glutinous rice flour to make the skin of the buns. The fillings can be savoury (like lormaigai) or sweet. These were filled with a sweet red bean paste.

桃紅燕清 Peach Gum and Agar Agar with Rock Sugar

I thought it was bird nest soup, then I remembered that I did not pay an arm and a leg for the dinner. Peach gum was amber coloured resin seeping out of the peach gum tree. Agar agar was chopped up and added for more texture and bulk.

The fruits were not quite to standard, sweet but not top shelf stuff.

Afterthoughts

When it comes to farm-to-table food, the word “simple” comes to mind. It can hardly be linked to fine dining or luxury. Dragon Well Manor subverted this idea with an average price of ¥392 per person.

As there are limited number of rooms available and there’s no open tables, reservation is a must. The menu is omakase style, but the staff will contact you beforehand to make sure that there’s no allergies or clear dislikes.

Dragon Well Manor 龙井草堂
399 Longjing Rd, Xihu, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China 西湖区龙井路399号
Tel : +86 571 8788 8777

Visited Mar 2024

Michelin Hangzhou Guide 1 Star 2023 (inaugural)