‘I’m so spoilt living in Guangzhou,’ says Wai Zhou, a local foodie champion. ‘The cuisine here is the finest in all of China.’ The old Chinese saying ‘Be born in Suzhou, live in Hangzhou, eat in Guangzhou, die in Liuzhou’ suggests that she’s not the only one to think so highly of restaurants in Guangzhou.
Zhou and I are having dinner at Bingsheng Zen Tea House, a cute vegetarian restaurant on the cusp of Xiaogang Park. It’s my third meal in Guangzhou, and the tastiest I’ve had all weekend. Which is quite a statement, given I’ve had lashings of dim sum and cheung fun (a Cantonese delicacy of steamed rice noodle rolls), washed down with all kinds of exotic tea.
Guangzhou – formerly Canton – is the capital of Guangdong province, and the spiritual home of Cantonese cuisine. From casual dim sum spots and tea houses to Michelin-starred fine dining establishments, the city’s ever-evolving dining scene has become one of the Greater Bay Area’s most vibrant culinary destinations.
And thanks to decades of domestic migration – with millions of residents hailing from other parts of the Chinese Mainland – Guangzhou’s food scene is not just limited to Cantonese cuisine. You’ll find that the city is laced with restaurants serving dishes from areas as far away as Sichuan and Xinjiang.