贵且值：纽约一家高端精致中餐厅

Imagination Worth the Added Price at Midtown’s La Chine
贵且值：纽约一家高端精致中餐厅

In a nest of dried grass and feathery moss sat an eggshell, its top neatly lopped off. Caviar and a crinkle of gold leaf shone just inside the rim. Underneath were layers of custard and hairy crab, a seasonal freshwater treat from China whose taste is a lot more seductive than its name. The rich, smooth pleasure in each spoonful almost made my head pop.

一个蛋壳放在用干草和轻柔苔藓做的窝里，顶部被整齐削掉。鱼子酱和一卷金叶在边缘闪耀，下面是一层层奶油冻和大闸蟹。大闸蟹是来自中国的季节性淡水美味，它的味道比名字要诱人得多。每一匙都浓郁柔滑，令我飘飘欲仙。

The egg was one of the first things I ate at La Chine, which opened in November inside the Waldorf Astoria, specializing in Chinese food made with finesse and an eye for beauty. This could get interesting, I thought. In fact, the rest of the meal and the two that followed did get interesting, in ways that those of us who love the cuisines of China wish would happen more often in New York.

这道菜是我在La Chine餐厅吃的前几道菜之一。这家餐厅去年11月开业，位于华道夫-阿斯多里亚饭店(Waldorf Astoria)内部，专做精致而具有美感的中餐。我当时想，后面的菜肯定更有意思。不出所料，这餐饭的其他菜以及后来吃的两顿的确更加有趣，我们这些超爱中餐的人很希望纽约出现更多这样的餐厅。

Sophisticated Chinese with an eye for creativity at the Waldorf Astoria.
La Chine这家餐厅去年11月开业，位于华道夫-阿斯多里亚饭店(Waldorf Astoria)内部，专做精致而具有美感的中餐。

Downtown Manhattan, Flushing in Queens and Sunset Park in Brooklyn are rich in Chinese restaurants. Their cooking can range from filling to thrilling, but it rarely aspires to climb the slopes of creativity. Ingredients are generally good but not stellar, limited as they are by the prices these restaurants can charge. Unlike many cities in Asia, New York has not historically had a broad base of people willing to spend a lot on Chinese food.

曼哈顿市中心、皇后区法拉盛以及布鲁克林日落公园(Sunset Park)有很多中餐厅。那些餐馆的菜肴有的仅供填腹，有的令人兴奋，但是几乎都不渴望创新。食材通常够好，但不够出彩，从这些餐厅的价位来讲，食材的种类太有限。不像亚洲的很多城市，从历史上讲，纽约并没有很多人愿意在中餐上花很多钱。

La Chine costs much more than most of them; lamb loin stir-fried with cumin is $38, about twice as much as the fervently admired Muslim lamb chop at Fu Run in Flushing. If you allow the man they call the “sake ninja” to talk you into a bottle, you could easily drop $100 or more. (This ninja wears a jacket and tie; he must be working undercover.) But at the risk of undermining my populist credentials, I’d suggest New York could use more Chinese restaurants that are as expensive as our most ambitious French and Italian places. Those restaurants could use more ingredients worth splurging on, and restaurateurs determined to lure talented chefs from China.

La Chine餐厅比纽约的大多数中餐馆都贵得多：孜然羊肉38美元，价格大约是法拉盛赋润东北美食(Fu Run)备受赞扬的清真羊排的两倍。如果你允许这里所谓的“清酒忍者”劝你点一瓶酒，那么你很可能要再花上至少100美元（这位忍者穿着西装，打着领带，他应该是秘密从事这项工作吧）。但是冒着损害我平民主义声誉的风险，我希望纽约出现更多和最有雄心的法式和意式餐厅一样昂贵的中餐厅。这些餐厅可以使用更多值得挥霍的食材，餐厅老板可以下定决心吸引来自中国的有才能的大厨。

We have Hakkasan, of course, part of a global chain whose crackerjack cooks excel at dim sum but tend to play it safe with other courses. At the two RedFarms, Joe Ng cooks with originality and verve, but the recurring sweetness in the dishes betrays a tailoring of his ideas for perceived American tastes. The cooking at La Chine is something different.

当然，我们有Hakkasan餐厅，它是一个全球连锁餐厅，那里杰出的厨师擅长做饺子，但是做其他菜比较保守。在两家RedFarms餐厅里，乔·吴(Joe Ng)在烹饪中注入创意和热情，但是菜肴中经常出现的甜味透露出他为适应美国人的口味而做的调整。La Chine餐厅的烹饪方法则与众不同。

The menu was devised by the executive chef, Kong Khai Meng. A native of Singapore, he became a protégé of the acclaimed chef Jereme Leung before setting up restaurants in hotels around Asia. With Mr. Leung, he worked out his ideas for La Chine, which he executes in the kitchen with David Garcelon, the hotel’s culinary director.

菜单是执行大厨孟江凯（音译）设计的。他是新加坡人，他在亚洲各地的酒店设立餐厅之前曾从师于备受赞誉的大厨梁子庚。他和梁子庚一起为La Chine餐厅出谋划策，在厨房里和酒店餐饮主管大卫·加尔瑟隆(David Garcelon)一起执行。

The restaurant replaces Oscar’s American Brasserie, a glorified coffee shop whose loss did not leave a deep wound in the city’s psyche. The bones of the space have been exposed, the massive pillars and ceiling coffers showing off the hotel’s Art Deco monumentality, though not its Art Deco flourishes. Some tables are set in secluded alcoves at the east end, framed by spidery latticework that evokes carved Chinese screens. A central chandelier, like a huge upside-down wedding cake, shines on vases of orchids whose pinks howl in this room of muted creams and golds.

这家餐厅的前身是Oscar’s American Brasserie，自我标榜为咖啡店，失去它并不会让纽约人伤心。这个空间的架构被暴露出来，巨大的柱子和天花板花格镶板展现出这家酒店的艺术装饰风格，虽然它的辉煌之处不在于艺术装饰。东端有些桌子设在隐蔽的凹室里，用蜘蛛网般的格子隔开，让人想起中式雕刻屏风。中央的枝形吊灯像一个巨大的倒置的婚礼蛋糕，照亮盛放兰花的花瓶，兰花的粉红花朵在这间柔和的奶油色和金色房间里很是显眼。

The effect would be more stunning if the lighting weren’t so murky; it hovers in the eternal twilight of surgery recovery rooms where patients slip in and out of consciousness. Each time I was about to go under, though, something from the kitchen would bring me back.

如果光线不是这么暗的话，它会更令人惊艳。餐厅永远笼罩在暮色般的灯光里，就像病人意识时有时无的手术康复室。不过，每当我要丧失意识时，厨房总会送来什么食物让我清醒。

Raw seafood always did it. Sliced yellowtail was fanned out in a pinwheel over Sichuan chile oil. Translucent bands of fluke were darkened by black rice vinegar, China’s answer to balsamic, then touched with hot peony oil, which sizzled and whitened the lean fish as it landed. A long rectangle of bigeye tuna tartare seasoned with soy vinegar was strewn with flowers, herbs, pickled shallots and a stripe of caviar. All three dishes took a modern, Japanese approach to Chinese flavors. All three were very good.

生海鲜永远能让我清醒。切成薄片的鲱鱼成扇形散开，像风车一样摆放在四川辣椒油上。透明的比目鱼加入黑米醋（相当于意大利香脂醋），颜色变黑，然后浇上一点热牡丹籽油，嘶嘶作响，少脂的鱼肉立刻变白。一个长方形盘子里放着大眼金枪鱼，用酱油醋调味，撒满鲜花、草本、腌圆葱和一条鱼子酱。这三道菜在中餐风味中融入现代的日本料理的做法，都很美味。

So was the stack of lightly battered Spanish mackerel delivered under a smoke-filled cloche, like the sturgeon at Eleven Madison Park; the smokiness of the fish was underscored by a smoked soy sauce, appealingly sweet and sticky.

西班牙鲭鱼肉泥也是如此。它盛放在一个烟雾缭绕的玻璃罩中上桌，跟Eleven Madison Park餐厅鲟鱼的做法很像；鱼的烟熏味因加入熏制酱油而显得更加浓郁，同时具有迷人的甜味和黏性。

Broad-bean-fried prawns were juicy and tender-firm inside a crisp, golden coating that flaked into spicy crumbs I couldn’t help eating off the plate.

蚕豆炸大虾汁液丰富，又嫩又紧实，金黄松脆的外壳纷纷落入辣辣的面包屑中，我简直想把盘子都吃掉。

Cauliflower was stir-fried with thick bacon slices in a very hot wok that caramelized the bumpy surface to a delicious mottled brown. The snow pea shoots with garlic were as simple, classic and good as any I’ve tasted.

花椰菜和厚厚的培根肉片在非常热的锅里翻炒，花椰菜凸凹不平的表面被炒成斑驳的褐色，非常美味。蒜蓉豌豆苗和我以前品尝过的一样简单、经典、美味。

Everything is served family style except the soups, which ought to be. In individual bowls, they are hard to work into a shared meal, and people may be tempted to skip them. This would be a loss, because they are beautifully made; there’s a clarity to the chicken cloud consommé, vividly seasoned with ginger, and a shellfish-drenched power to the “eight hour golden broth,” thick with lobster, crab and scallops.

除了汤，其他菜都是以共享的方式上桌，其实汤也应该共享。由于汤是盛放在单独的碗里，所以很难融入共享的正餐，搞得食客有点想跳过它。但是跳过的话就太可惜了，因为汤做得很美：清炖鸡汤非常清澈，用姜提鲜；还有充满龙虾、蟹肉和扇贝的“8小时黄金浓汤”。

Before opening, restaurants now routinely put out photographs of one striking dish, like a band releasing a single to build excitement for an album. For La Chine, this was the barbecued duck. And it is an exciting bird, suffused with five-spice powder and ready to be tucked into griddle-blackened crepes with skinny sticks of cucumber, leek and, surprise, cantaloupe.

如今，餐馆在开业之前都会发布一道惊艳菜肴的照片，就像乐队先发布一支单曲，激发人们对专辑的热情。La Chine餐厅发布的是烤鸭。这道菜着实令人兴奋，弥漫着五香粉的味道，和黄瓜丝、葱丝和哈密瓜丝（没想到吧？）一起裹入带有黑煎点的薄饼里。

But if anybody had asked, I would have suggested leading with the black-iron tabletop grill that holds a wonderful barbecued collar of Berkshire pork, the meat’s pink edges crackling with a candied honey glaze. (The menu reveals that the honey was secreted by bees who live on the roof, if that appeals to you.) Chicken with cashews may not make a great advertisement for a high-end restaurant, but it’s a great dish, in a kung-pao-style sauce that is keenly balanced between sweet and sour.

但是如果让我选，我会选用黑铁桌面烤架烤的绝妙的巴克夏猪颈肉，肉的粉色边缘闪烁着蜂蜜的光亮（菜单上说，所用的蜂蜜是生活在屋顶上的蜜蜂分泌的，不知道这会不会吸引你）。腰果鸡肉也许不适合用作一家高档餐馆的广告，但它很棒，用的是酸甜度达到完美平衡的宫保酱汁。

In fact, most of the main courses show off La Chine’s sophistication apart from some subdued seafood dishes. Sous-vide cod with black bean sauce was flabby and, like the scallops in a long canoe-shaped dish with peppers and onions, not a showpiece of sparkling freshness.

实际上，大部分主菜都展现出La Chine餐厅的精致，除了一些清淡的海鲜。豆豉鳕鱼的鱼肉不够紧实，和盛放在独木舟形长餐盘上的辣椒洋葱扇贝一样，没有展现出迷人的新鲜滋味。

The restaurant’s French name is puzzling until the desserts show up; they are very much in a Western mode. The warm chocolate cake, with sesame ganache melting away inside, has a seductive undertow of spice. The most elaborate and prettiest is the vacherin of passion-fruit cream sandwiched by white spirals of meringue; there’s a white chocolate sphere painted with a metallic swirl like a pink pearl, and a marvelous scoop of sorbet made with fresh lychees. La Chine is far from the realm of fortune cookies, and better off for it.

这家餐厅的法语名字一直让我迷惑不解，直到甜品上桌：甜品具有强烈的西式风格。温暖的巧克力蛋糕里融化着芝麻奶油巧克力酱，回味无穷。最精致、最好看的是百香果奶油夹心蛋糕，里面加入一圈圈白色螺旋状蛋白汁。还有涂着粉珍珠般闪亮螺纹的白巧克力球以及用新鲜荔枝做的异常美味的果汁冰糕。La Chine餐厅绝不是福饼的殿堂——幸好不是。