The opening of a new Chinese restaurant in Lisbon would normally come to pass relatively quietly, but Yum Cha Garden in Oeiras, an establishment that has been getting rave reviews in the press and has a legion of devoted customers, has aroused the curiosity of those who have heard about its new branch that just recently opened in the capital city.
On the day of our visit, lunchtime on a weekday, the place was full and most of the tables seemed occupied by people who knew exactly what they wanted. Several baskets of dim sum were carried past us as we analyzed the menu, all piping hot and smelling tempting enough to encourage us to order the same.
We tried the chicken feet with black bean sauce. It was well cooked, the cartilage wasn’t overdone, and the flavour was intensified by chilies and fresh chives. The Medusa salad, better known on this side of the world as jellyfish, proved that the very creature we flee from on beaches can be quite delicious if properly prepared on a plate. Accompanied by fresh vegetables and a Thai sauce with just the right amount of spiciness, the jellyfish was crispy and blended well with the other ingredients.
We also had yam and meat dumplings, fried in a very light batter, meat and glutinous rice cakes, and some freshly made shrimp dim sum, all confirming that the expectations around the new Yum Cha Garden restaurant are well deserved, and putting an end to any fears of finding frozen dim sum.
After properly savoring our meal, we sat down with Chen Hui, the owner. Chen also owns the original restaurant in Oeiras, where her father and brother still work.
“Many customers who visited the restaurant in Oeiras were from Lisbon and were always asking when we would go to Lisbon. Now we have.”
Having only opened their doors at the beginning of July, the restaurant already has regular customers, many of whom were faithful to the location in Oeiras, as well as others who have just found out about the new one in Lisbon. The clientele is Portuguese and Chinese, which confirms the quality of the cuisine.
Until a decade ago, most Chinese restaurants in Lisbon had a reputation for lacking in gastronomic diversity, offering menus that were almost always the same, where the food, regardless of the key ingredients, had the same uniform flavor, the result of a mixture of soy sauce, oyster sauce and fish sauce.
However, the restaurants that have been opening up since have broken with this monotonous trend, and now offer food from different regions of China, and a variety that has allowed Lisboners to learn about a part, however small, of the immense world of Chinese cuisine. And gone are the days of key ingredients for Chinese cuisine being inaccessible in Lisbon.
“A lot of things are bought in the supermarket and in the markets in the Martim Moniz area. The most difficult ingredients we have sent from China, Hong Kong and the Netherlands.”
It pays to wait
In addition to the smaller dishes, easily integrated into the traditionally shared Yum Cha meal, there is also a wide range of meat, fish and seafood, as well as vegetarian dishes. Despite the variety, the dim sum is the jewel in the crown: “Some customers complain about the time it takes for the dishes to get to the table, but then I explain that we only fill and put the dim sum into the steamer when an order is placed to ensure that what they eat is really fresh. Once they understand this, they no longer complain.”
Ms Chen’s husband, Liu Yun Zhi cooks the dough and fillings, fashioning each one as requested. Skilled in Cantonese cuisine, he repeats these tasks on a daily basis, with the help of six assistant cooks.
“It’s very labour intensive, but it’s worth it,” she says. And we agree.
The culinary geography of the restaurant misled us into thinking that Ms Chen and her husband were from southern China. In fact, the couple were born in Fujian, and lived there until swapping their lives in the East for Europe. In the Netherlands, where both worked until about fifteen years ago, Liu Yun Zhi specialized in Cantonese cuisine.
“When we settled in the Netherlands, my husband found work in a Chinese restaurant and was taught techniques and ways of cooking.Chinese restaurants in that area of the Netherlands were all dim sum and Cantonese cuisine restaurants, so this was the area in which he specialized. After fifteen years in the country, we decided to come to Portugal and that’s how we opened Yum Cha Garden.”
From Fujian to Guangzhou via Holland, from Oeiras to Lisbon via the A5 motorway, Yum Cha Garden has settled in Portugal with the noble mission of offering authentic Cantonese cuisine. And although Chen Hui is from another province, and her relationship with Guangzhou is more that of a neighbour than a resident, Cantonese has gradually woven its way into her everyday life.
“Before I only spoke Mandarin, but as I have many customers from Guangzhou, I hear Cantonese every day and I’m already speaking it as well.”
As for the Portuguese who come here for lunch or dinner: “almost all can manage fai chi, or chopsticks as you say around here, and it looks like dim sum is already familiar to many customers,” she says.
Now all that’s needed is to switch the sardines or Sunday Cozido for Cantonese Yum Cha and to stop looking at salty snacks and steamed dumplings as if they were just starters.
