SiChuan Moon

For a meal at Sichuan Moon, one must book two months in advance, navigate the hellish Shanghai immigration service hall to get a number, spend hours traveling to Shanghai and then more hours to Macau, and while there, might as well queue up for some other Macau restaurants. In short, this trip wasn't easy, and to catch up with work, I paid the price with several nights of little sleep.

Sichuan Moon, more famous by visit than by word. And after visiting, my thought is: the fare is good, but not so earth-shatteringly exceptional.

In fact, in terms of dish innovation and meal quality, I don't see a significant gap between Sichuan Moon and those well-known avant-garde restaurants within the country; they belong to the same league. Who is better within this league is a matter of taste (I belong to those who don't favor Sichuan Moon that much; overall, the seasoning is a bit too heavy for me...).

Today's overwhelming reputation of Sichuan Moon (at least anecdotally among my acquaintances, surpassing all avant-garde restaurants within the country) I believe is due to two factors:

Firstly, benefiting from Macau's status as a "destination" rather than a "place of life," combined with the honor of two Michelin stars within half a year of opening and the influence of Chef André Chiang himself, plus the restaurant's strict reservation limits (previously open only four days a week, one seating per day, serving less than 20 guests per round; now slightly more relaxed), making Sichuan Moon perennially difficult to book. The more challenging the reservation, the fewer the visitors, the harder the effort required, the more the reputation is designed, or rather, manipulated.

Secondly, Sichuan Moon's presentation is quite straightforward, intuitive, complete, and rhythmic. Arriving at the restaurant at 18:30 and leaving at 23:00, a good four and a half hours, with about ten dishes and ten drinks, I rarely feel the time drag. Sichuan Moon isn't the kind of restaurant that clings to you, demanding you listen to dish introductions, bombards you with information, performs periodically, and constantly interacts with guests in various ways. On the contrary, even a diligent diner like me can hardly recall what the waitstaff said while serving the dishes. More memorable are fleeting details, like drinking Pu'er flower tea at the tea seat before dining, the tea master's gentle demeanor, and the spring water from Niubei and Gongga Mountains, or the long chili strings resembling strings of firecrackers, and the 1.88-meter-long noodles. Those ingredient displays are quietly placed before you on the table, without the need for further information extraction; what you see is the information.

This design of dining rhythm itself is a form of manipulation.

Is it possible that, for a fine dining restaurant, the most powerful service isn't the all-encompassing service, but a kind of psychological hypnosis?

P.S. Chef Jiang happened to be in the restaurant that day and even came to greet our table, a Taiwanese saying "I can eat super spicy!" is somewhat endearing.

Returning to the perspective of the meal, there were three highlights that evening:

First, the opening "Spicy Beef Cake," seemingly a small and simple dish, actually demonstrated considerable skill. Made with two types of beef and seasoned with green onion and ginger, it had a high temperature, crispy crust, and juicy meat, leaving a lingering fragrance, a stunning appetizer.

Second, "Erjingtiao Chili Scented Scallops," I was surprised when the waiter cut open the bread crust, expecting another cliché bread dish, but it wasn't. It appeared to be a common bowl of noodles but was actually scallops disguised as noodles (with some yam noodles mixed in). The base was chicken broth, combined with the freshness of scallops, the sweetness of fermented bread, and the aroma of Erjingtiao chili. It was a unique scallop dish.

Third, the restaurant's Chinese teas. That night I opted for wine pairing, which originally included one tea, one beer, two cocktails, and five wines. As I expressed a preference for tea, the restaurant tailored a tea-centric pairing for me, including the Pu'er flower tea served to all guests at the start and the mature Pu'er at the end, plus Moonlight White, Osmanthus Longjing, Small Leaf Oolong, Coffee Oolong (recently brought by Chef Jiang from Taiwan, although tea leaves, it tasted similar to American coffee). Sichuan Moon's tea pairings, I believe, are professional and well-matched with the menu and worth a try. My thanks to tea masters Jacky and Yoyo.

The menu is presented in the form of a scroll painting, with a hard-shell gilded cover, which can be spread out like a folding fan on the table.

This menu isn't the strict, orderly French fine dining type; it doesn't strictly follow a set pattern like one starter, two seafood, two meats. Instead, the courses are mixed up, more from a flavor pairing perspective. And in terms of flavors, Sichuan and spicy are acquired tastes for me. Therefore, I can't precisely judge the flavor profiling of this menu, whether it completely and creatively expresses the twenty-four flavor types or replicates some nostalgic old flavors. This part is better judged by local Sichuan guests. Here's a simple record of what I had that day.

Upon seating, "Pu'er Flower Tea," there was about a forty-minute gap from arriving at the restaurant to the first pre-meal snack. We were first led to a tea seat to drink the welcome tea, listening to the tea master's slow story about how the restaurant acquired this Pu'er flower tea from a Yunnan collector, the pure snowmelt water used from Niubei and Gongga Mountains, and how the tea cakes on the wall absorb the restaurant's aroma. The teapot is beautiful, the brewing graceful, making one feel a moment of calm and a sense of ritual. The authenticity of the story, however, is not so crucial.

The first course, "Old Pickles," with a choice of twelve pickles and each guest selecting three; I chose pomelo pear, umeboshi tomato, and black garlic corn. The pickles were more palatable than those at Ming Lu Sichuan, with black garlic corn being the best.

The second course, "88 Fortunate Cold Dishes," I had ambitiously declared that I would eat the classic menu and then directly proceed to the exploration menu, but after this cold dish, I realized my naivety. It was equivalent to eight small dishes at once, including Sichuan pepper jelly, sweet and sour fried Cordyceps flowers, razor clams, brown sugar broad bean paste pickled cabbage, codfish, tea-smoked duck roll, husband and wife lung slices, and honey pomelo ice plant salad. The most aromatic was the Cordyceps flower, reminiscent of eating chips.

The third course, "Rich and Sour Soup," I found this soup to be overly complex. Presented in a rich floral pattern with a base layer of chicken tofu soup, decorated with pickles forming a floral design, garnished with spherified black vinegar, served with a clarified but thick chicken broth, then dotted with green Erjingtiao essential oil and red spicy oil essence, with the former providing aroma and the latter spice. The final product is a simple and clean hot and sour soup, but combining it with the chicken tofu and ornate flowers, it almost had a fermented smell. I found it more of a showpiece, designed to stun you on arrival.

The fourth course, "Secret Spicy King Crab," featured king crab legs roasted over binchotan charcoal (perhaps not, but binchotan was brought to the table), combining Sichuan dry pot and Hong Kong-style typhoon shelter ideas, the crab legs coated with sesame and other spices, served with tuna belly chili sauce. Again, not as expected because the crab meat itself was not processed, tender but not fragrant, and the spices were just on the surface.

The fifth course, "Black Truffle Salted Egg Glutinous Rice Cake," featured black truffles fried in truffle oil, giving them a dark and shiny appearance. The glutinous rice cake was filled with round glutinous rice and some salty meat, reminiscent of zongzi flavor. It was served with a layer of crispy chips and salted egg yolk sauce, overall quite heavy. After three consecutive heavy hitters, I was a bit overwhelmed.

The sixth course, "Erjingtiao Chili Scented Scallops," I've mentioned earlier, won't repeat.

The seventh course, "Peppery Wild Mushroom Duck Liver Frozen," had a somewhat last-century flavor. The waitstaff claimed it was Chef Jiang's memory, his first creation while studying in a French restaurant twenty years ago. Black in appearance, it was similar to a tea bowl steam, with duck liver foam mixed with mushrooms such as morel and ox hoof. The flavor was as you'd imagine from this description. Although I'm not a fan of Kiina, I must admit their duck liver cake is the best interpretation of duck liver I've had.

The eighth course, "Classic Mapo Tofu," cooked with plenty of Wagyu beef, served on a sizzling hot plate. The tofu, black and white, cut into small cubes, hiding a king prawn inside. Two types of Sichuan peppercorns were used, Han source green peppercorn, and Dahongpao peppercorn, the former extremely numbing. Purely in terms of seasoning, the stove version of Mapo Tofu might be more palatable, but Sichuan Moon's rendition avoids any controversy, done with bold strokes. Unfortunately

, rice was not offered.

The ninth course, "Abalone Dan Dan Noodles," the classic 1.88-meter-long noodles, presented in a teapot. This was pretty ordinary, with noodle elements repeating from the earlier scallop noodles. I just wanted a bowl of plain white porridge here.

The tenth course, "Ancient and Modern," two desserts, both quite simple. One was brown sugar glutinous rice balls and pastries; the other was Wuliangye ice cream. Baijiu-flavored ice cream, I haven't tasted any good ones yet, mostly gimmicks.

The eleventh course, "Sour, Sweet, Bitter, Hot," I don't recall much about the green Sichuan peppercorn chocolate, but the closing dessert "Sour, Sweet, Bitter, Hot" was memorable. It looked like a gelatin candy, tasting first sour, then sweet (easy to achieve, like those hard candies from childhood), and surprisingly ended with a hint of spice.