What to do
- Order the squirrel-shaped mandarin fish once, for the theatre, and then order what the next table is having.
Eat — Squirrel mandarin fish, lion's head meatballs, crystal pork, and hairy crab if you are there in the autumn.
← Back to Cuisine
Food
Jiangsu苏菜
The knife-work cuisine. Jiangsu cooking is where Chinese technical showing-off lives: the tofu shredded into hair-fine threads that float apart in clear soup, the fish scored into a pine-cone shape so it opens when it is fried. The flavours are delicate and noticeably sweeter than anywhere north — Wuxi in particular sweetens things to a degree that startles people from other provinces. This is the food of the Jiangnan water towns and of the merchant houses that paid for the Suzhou gardens, and it is best eaten in the same trip as those gardens because it is the same sensibility.