Yu Zhi Lan

24-1 Changfa Street, Qingyang

Chengdu, Sichuan

China

Tel. +86 2862491966

Snack before the meal

Chinese tea, Cool Jelly and Homemade Fruit Jam, Sweet potato with sesame cake

Appetizers

Multi-coloured noodles with lobster

Fresh lily bulb scented with rose petals

Stir-fried mushroom and Chinese stem lettuce (celtuce)

Sour-and-hot wood ear mushrooms

Water bamboo with roasted green chilli and Sichuan pepper

Spiced beef shin in chilli-oil sauce

Laquered cashew nuts with sweet flour sauce

Pickled pepper chicken feet

Handmade ‘golden silk’ noodles with cabbage heart in high-quality broth

Ya an Sturgeon Caviar and Shrimp Jelly

Braised Fish Maw with Boletus

Fried Morel with Steak

The Essential Taste of Superior Abalone

Deep Sea Cucumber in Sichuanese sour-and-hot broth

Grilled Eel in Sichuan Chili and fava bean sauce with scallion, ginger and garlic

Imperial Bird’s nest with Peach Sap and Snow Peas

Boiled Pork Dumpling with Sichuanese chili oil Sauce

Mugwort Cake

Pumpkin Boiled in Mineral Warter

After Dinner Tea

Bamboo leaf Infusion Tea

Sometimes, you can create and run one of the most important and famous restaurants in your country, have two Michelin stars, have elevated the cuisine of a specific region to a whole new level like practically nobody else managed to do before, and you can still live in a relatively peaceful and quiet existence, without much fan fare and noise. The real food lovers out there, and especially so the knowledgeable foodies about all things China, flock in droves to the small establishment that is basically always full and where you don’t have the faintest hope of snagging a table sans reservation arranged months ahead.

Everything is low-key and calm at Yu Zhi Lan, an upscale restaurant specializing in China’s ultra-famous Sichuan cuisine (just consider that % of all Chinese eateries in the USA feature either Cantonese or Sichuanese cuisine). The low-key approach with beginning to try and finding the place: it’s an exercise, given that there is no sign. And so, if you don’t live in Chengdu, or have simply never been to the restaurant before, it is best to call the restaurant when your taxi drops you off in the general vicinity of its address. A door will quickly open allowing you to enter a passageway. The small villa the restaurant is housed in is charming in its simple rusticity, with plants, ceramic pots (all the serving dishes at Yu Zhi Lan are made by the chef himself) and wood everywhere. Different small rooms allow eighteen lucky patrons to be seated at a time, for example in private rooms like I was and where peace and quiet continue to be welcome companions throughout the meal.