Yellow braised chicken @ №1 Chongqing Fish and Original Chicken
109 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, L3 5TF
When it comes to Chinese eateries, Mount Pleasant is starting to give Liverpool’s unofficial new Chinatown of London Road a run for its money.
As well as Shun Long China BBQ there’s also the excellent Wang’s Dumplings and — in a basement of a Georgian townhouse halfway to Hope Street — No.1 Chongqing.
Named after the sprawling city in Sichuan province, the menu at this diner consists largely of dishes from this region including Mao Cai (hot pot) Ma Po Tofu (minced pork and silken tofu in a spicy sauce) and Ji Shen (fried chicken gizzards).
One exception is the Huang Men Ji, or yellow braised chicken, a dish from Shandong province. The yellow in its name comes from the colour of the sauce which is made with hefty amounts of fragrant ginger and soybean paste. Served in this sauce are thin slices of potato and smoky shitake mushroom and chunks of chicken, caramalised in soy and sugar.
The chicken pieces — leg and thigh — are cut small but with bone, skin and tendon still attached. For someone not used to eating meat like this (read: me) and not great with using chopsticks (read: again, me) it’s a challenge but a rewarding one. The meat is both sweet and intensely savoury, the sauce so addictive you’ll be pouring it over your remaining white rice long after the meat and vegetables have been exhausted. Fantastic.
One more note: while the restaurant has only one dog-eared copy of the menu printed in English, the kind and patient staff will happily volunteer to show you pictures on their phone of all the food they have available.
