A High-Note Duet in Macau, the World’s Capital of Gastronomy: Imperial Garden X Good Wine Good Cai
[ Everything is changing everything ]
Wittgenstein said:
The meaning of the world lies outside the world.
I was walking down the streets of San Sebastián, the World’s Capital of Gastronomy, and recalled the four-hand collaboration titled “The Splendor of Jing” I had recently tasted in Macau, another World’s Capital of Gastronomy in China. My mouth still secretly salivates.
This was a high-note duet on the global stage, jointly crafted by Chef Zhuang Jiahui of Imperial Garden and Cai Hao, founder of Good Wine Good Cai restaurant and the Howard Cai Selection whiskey brand.
Both have cooked for top-tier global tycoons at private banquets. One inherits and revitalizes nearly lost Chinese treasures. The other, the godfather of Chinese whiskey, is an ambassador of fine wines and flavors between East and West. He uses Western culinary science to deconstruct and iterate traditional tastes, then elevates the status of modern Chinese cuisine worldwide from East to West.
Artist/gourmet Mei Mao said: “When fine food is before you, even family members are ignored.” That probably describes this meal perfectly.
Let’s start with the must-have-in-a-lifetime Taishi Snake Soup and Crispy Braised Sea Cucumber.
This was not my first visit to Imperial Garden, nor my first taste of Good Wine Good Cai’s Crispy Braised Sea Cucumber.
I remember that last year, the first time I dined at this restaurant specializing in “Jiang Taishi cuisine,” I was dazzled by the opulent floral scenery that cost over 200 million yuan. This time, it was not just scenery—it was a grand event! At the four-hand dinner at Imperial Garden in the Grand Lisboa Palace Macau, Chef Cai Hao and Chef Zhuang Jiahui, the orthodox inheritor of Taishi cuisine, each presented four exquisite dishes. Eight dishes in total, making this the best four-hand collaboration I’ve had this year.
“Everything is changing. For loyal diners with increasingly refined palates to feel that the signature dishes remain unchanged, the required effort lies in invisible changes throughout the process,” said Chef Cai Hao.
I felt an extraordinary aura.
The menu appeared traditional, but in fact, it was not. Chef Cai Hao said, “Don’t be fooled by the dish names—they are all new creations. Some of you have eaten the Crispy Braised Sea Cucumber, Hot and Sour Noodles, and Avocado Bird’s Nest many times, but this time I brought not a single ingredient from elsewhere; all ingredients are locally sourced. I truly admire Chef Zhuang’s dedication over the past two months in carefully finding every ingredient I needed.”
For me, the centuries-old Taishi Snake Soup, almost a lost art, tasted like the stars and oceans. Adding a drop of Good Wine Good Cai’s 1991 ♦️A Sherry Cask whiskey released a hint of jujube honey fragrance from the soul, intensifying the deliciousness.
When it comes to the Cantonese tradition of eating snake, one cannot ignore Jiang Taishi. He was Jiang Kongyin, renowned as “the foremost foodie of Guangdong,” the last imperial scholar of the Qing dynasty. His home banquets became “Taishi cuisine,” an enduring legend in the long river of gastronomic history.
The first dish I had at Imperial Garden was “Taishi Phoenix Soup,” where snake was replaced with partridge. That was based on the classic “Taishi Five-Snake Soup,” with a time-honored secret recipe. The thickened broth shimmered like crystal, with “thousands of fine shreds” all resulting from masterful knife skills, akin to the double-sided Suzhou embroidery on the walls! Expensive fish maw was not the highlight in that soup; the “phoenix” referred to partridge. It took 100 partridges to make the stock, simmered with sugarcane, longan, red dates, tangerine peel, and old ginger, resulting in incredibly gentle and mellow flavors. Served with coriander, chrysanthemum petals, lemon leaves, and crispy crackers. It felt like silk threads touching the tongue, a warm breeze. This time, to my excitement, I actually got to taste the authentic “Qing Dynasty Jiang Taishi Snake Soup”!
Chef Zhuang studied under the legendary Taishi cuisine master in Hong Kong, Lai Yau Tim, whose master Li Choi was the last private chef of Jiang Kongyin, the great Cantonese gourmet.
Jiang Kongyin’s granddaughter, Jiang Xianzhu, author of “Old Tales from Orchid Studio and Nanhai Shisanlang,” made significant contributions to Cantonese cuisine by faithfully recording the high standards of Jiang Taishi. The Taishi Snake Soup was one of the most famous banquet dishes of the Jiang family; her menu preserved it, requiring five types of snakes: golden banded krait, many-banded krait, cobra, water snake, and python—a recipe a century old.
Speaking of the “Taishi cuisine” recorded by Ms. Jiang Xianzhu, Chef Zhuang said, “My responsibility is to elevate Taishi cuisine on the foundation of tradition. Most Taishi recipes are actually home-style methods; what we present tonight is refined cuisine that meets modern aesthetics.”
For this powerful collaboration, Chef Zhuang, as an apprentice of Lai Yau Tim, the Taishi cuisine inheritor, and Chef Cai Hao have known each other for over a decade, but only recently did they collaborate for the first time at Imperial Garden. Thanks to Macau’s promotion of local ingredients, Chef Cai Hao tasted Chef Zhuang’s skills and found that beyond inheriting his master’s craft, Chef Zhuang’s own innovations were remarkably impressive. After a deep conversation, they considered scheduling further exchanges, leading to this dinner and the bond with Imperial Garden.
Qing Dynasty Jiang Taishi Snake Soup
When I first tasted this Taishi Snake Soup at Imperial Garden, it felt like eating a modern antique—novel and grand. At that moment, I savored a sip of the paired wine.
- ♦️A - Macduff 1991
Chef Cai’s team explained that Macduff whiskies are typically aged for over 20 years before bottling, and it proved wise. The wine is mellow yet robust with excellent aging potential. Their new-make spirit, distinctly nutty, oily, and spicy, needs long years to polish its edges. As it rounds out, it continuously increases fruit and warm aromas… Quiet years of aging in oak casks undergo a phoenix-like rebirth.
The distillery is in the eastern Scottish Highlands, near the sea. Designed by famous architect William Delme-Evans, it is distinctive. This single cask distilled in 1991, aged in sherry cask, 46.9% ABV, only 160 bottles. It ranks first in the diamond suit of the Howard Cai Selection poker series.
Whiskey is a natural perfume; Fei Ge was warming the body with his palm to release more aroma.
Eating the Taishi Snake Soup alone—with ingredients like wood ear, bamboo shoot shreds, tangerine peel, fish maw, and snake meat—after tasting the original flavor, mix in chrysanthemum, lemon leaf shreds, and crispy crackers for a fresh and elevated taste. After years of refinement, it has a lingering, fragrant, and mellow flavor.
With the enhancement of the wine, the ancient charm becomes enchanting! Rich fruit notes like Xinjiang papaya, blackcurrant, and raisins unfold layer by layer. The signature nuttiness of the wine combined with the snake meat shreds evokes an image of snake dancing in a grass basket in an Egyptian temple!
Then, tiramisu-like cream and dark chocolate appear on the tongue. Then tangerine peel, figs, toasted oak appear in sequence, intertwining with the fine shreds in the soup. Finally, a touch of smoky flavor and a hint of sea saltiness, with a clean finish.
This made me look forward to the next dish! Gourmet Fei Ge said, after years of drinking, whenever describing strong spirits, especially whiskey, or richly aromatic ones, he likes to use analogies of male-female relationships.
At the table, he recalled tasting a 25-year-old and a 30-year-old old stocks simultaneously. The 25-year-old was like a husband and wife smoking together after making love; the 30-year-old was like falling asleep with a playful lover.
Chef Cai Hao joked, “If a meal at Good Wine Good Cai had no whiskey, you’d probably flip the table. The relationship between good wine and good food is that the dishes should revolve around the wine, not the other way around. This relationship is constantly evolving.” That was the romance between wine and food.
Also haunting my dreams was Good Wine Good Cai’s Crispy Braised Sea Cucumber. The version on the table tonight was already 4.0 plus, always iterating!
“You might have eaten many crispy sea cucumbers elsewhere, but today I can proudly say this is the real thing, because the skin doesn’t fall off,” said Chef Cai Hao, the original creator of this dish and a strict teacher. He generously shares the process, hoping to lead all Chinese cuisine into a more modern cooking era.
The sea cucumber skin is crispy, the inside soft like sticky rice cake, with a delicate natural fragrance. After oil-bathing the crispy skin, it’s dressed with a healthier lean meat broth and paired with a special mustard sauce for the finishing touch.
Signature Crispy Braised Sea Cucumber
“This dish has been loved by everyone since I returned to China 19 years ago. I iterate it every six years. Over 19 years, I have made three iterations.”
Chef Cai showed me the thick cross-section of the sea cucumber that night.
“Wow! It’s upgraded again!” I couldn’t help saying.
“Today’s sea cucumber is indeed good. Differences in origin directly affect the protein and fiber density; they are completely different. Accordingly, cooking techniques and seasoning must be readjusted. These details may not be obvious to diners, and you can also forget previous flavors and start anew. The characteristics of each ingredient are fluid—it’s up to you how to use them,” said Chef Cai.
“Currently, you can eat version 4.0 in mainland China, but why the upgrade from 1.0? Mainly because wild large sea cucumbers are increasingly scarce, and their growth cycle is slow. After using up one producing area, we must switch to another, hence the iteration.”
That is the reverence of top chefs for taste consistency and ingredient evolution.
“Version 1.0 sauce had more abalone; version 2.0 had more lean meat; version 3.0 focused on health, adding some mushrooms. To enhance flavor, we paired it with Chef Cai’s specially selected sherry cask whiskey, which amplifies the sea cucumber’s taste, allowing further breakdown in the mouth, taking the senses from pure drinking to exquisite details—it’s truly worthwhile.”
After roasting and frying, the ingredients may feel slightly rough on the palate, so it’s best to balance with a very juicy, smooth sherry cask. It needs obvious fruitiness, sweetness, and not too strong alcohol. The Cai Hao Selection ♥️10 Sherry Cask whiskey is perfect.
- ♥️10 - Tomatin Sherry Single Cask Howard Cai Select Poker Series Single Malt Whisky “The Heart 10 Tomatin”
I saw it’s limited to 205 bottles. This distillery, once the world’s largest single malt whiskey producer, is in the Scottish Highlands and was founded in 1897. It was born in whiskey’s heyday but faced closure due to industry crises. After restarting, in 2017, Tomatin was named “Scottish Distillery of the Year”—the best reward for their relentless pursuit of quality.
The distillery is at high altitude, with one of the best cellars in Scotland for aging whiskey. Its annual “Angel’s Share” is only about a quarter of other distilleries.
Indeed, it paired wonderfully with the rich sea cucumber! The whiskey smelled slightly creamy, fresh and sweet, with a hint of tropical fruits like lemon and beeswax. On the palate, it was robust, fruity, then light cream and a woody note. One bite of sea cucumber, one sip of whiskey—mouthwatering.
First Four-Hand Duet: Eight Exquisite Tastes
Let me start from the very beginning of the banquet. The aperitif champagne was a 2008 Dom Pérignon; one sip washed away the dust.
I began to appreciate the exquisite surroundings of Imperial Garden. Everywhere, it interprets the elegant Chinese style that once captivated the West, radiating the Eastern sentiment and Western charm born from Eurasian trade exchanges. The designer of the restaurant was the master Alan Chan.
The Suzhou embroidery on the wall is lifelike. A custom silk embroidery piece 35 meters long and 2.5 meters high runs through the entire hall, inspired by the century-old woodblock print book “Kikka Hyaku” by Japanese artist Keiichi Hasegawa. The St. Louis crystal chandeliers from the French royal brand cascade like flowing water. On the golden glass wall at the other end of the main dining area, scenes from “Dream of the Red Chamber,” one of China’s four great classical novels, are vividly engraved, depicting the lives of characters in the Grand View Garden. Amid birdsong and floral fragrance, transparent Ming-style “four-head official hat chairs” and avant-garde tables allow diners an unobstructed view of “butterflies dancing.”
The appearance of “Gold Coin Chicken” and “Taishi Gezha” (crispy egg custard) warranted a ritual of bathing and changing clothes. Some dishes are rarely encountered in life—rare to hear of, rarer to smell, even rarer to taste!
Imperial Garden Welcome Drink
Grand Lisboa Palace started the evening with a pine-smoked cocktail tea with sandalwood and fruity aromas, calming the body and mind.
Taishi Matsutake Gezha & Charcoal-Grilled Foie Gras Gold Coin Chicken
The appetizer: Charcoal-Grilled Foie Gras Gold Coin Chicken follows the traditional method, replacing chicken liver with foie gras for richer flavor. The fat is marinated overnight with rose wine sugar, then Spanish Iberian pork collar is marinated with a special char siu sauce. Both are skewered into coin shapes, grilled over a charcoal fire with lychee wood, repeatedly brushed with honey and smoked over high heat, then finally paired with pan-seared French foie gras and mille-feuille pastry. It is sweet and rich with the charcoal-smoke of lychee wood.
2018 Comtesse De Cherisey Bois De Blagny Meursault, Burgundy, France
This appetizer was paired with a Meursault, fresh with minerality. As for the Taishi Matsutake Gezha, a classic Taishi dish, Chef Zhuang faithfully recreated it using the most traditional method. The Gezha combines stock and matsutake before frying; when eaten, it is as silky as sipping broth.
Golden Caviar Peony Tiger Prawn Balls
Earlier, I had marveled at Chef Zhuang’s skill in shelling Sri Lankan crab legs barehanded without breaking the meat. The crystal tiger prawn balls, with their red shell removed and rinsed under running water for a long time, tasted like soft, crunchy snowballs, astonishing me. Golden Caviar Peony Tiger Prawn Balls is Chef Zhuang’s proud creation. Using 4-head tiger prawns (about 1 kg per 4 prawns), he skillfully removes the shell, leaving the body translucent, then enhances it with special techniques and marinade, and cooks using the Cantonese oil-bathing method. A new-style sauce made from 25-year-aged Italian balsamic vinegar and oyster sauce, topped with French caviar—a truly addictive taste.
From my conversation with Chef Zhuang, I learned that this is a traditional dish made by his master’s generation at least thirty to forty years ago. In the second version’s improvement, they replaced traditional Jinhua ham with Spanish Iberian ham and used 25-year-aged Italian balsamic vinegar to create a new oyster sauce, replacing the traditional oyster sauce and shrimp paste, elevating the flavor. I believe this gives the dish new life.
The flavor of the prawn balls still retains the taste of Chef Zhuang’s master’s creation, but he changed the surrounding pairings, giving rise to the “Peony Tiger Prawn Balls” of the banquet. This is the third revised version; he let go of obsession, wanting to bring diners a fresher experience. Abandoning Spanish Iberian ham, he added caviar, spending a long time selecting one that matched the tiger prawn balls perfectly, making it even more delicious than the previous two versions. The difficulty was how to preserve the taste of his master’s classic dish while elevating it through ingredient pairing.
After that came the breathtaking Taishi Snake Soup and Crispy Braised Sea Cucumber! Don’t think the climax ends there.
Ginger and Scallion Sauce Red King Crab
Ginger and Scallion Sauce Red King Crab deconstructs the flavor using French techniques. The addition of light cream rounds out the ginger and scallion notes.
There was an anecdote: while searching for ingredients for this dish, Chef Zhuang encountered a typhoon; the red king crabs from Chaozhou-Shantou area were insufficient, so they ended up using Hokkaido crab. The salinity of crabs from that area differs from those from Chaozhou-Shantou, requiring slight adjustments in cooking. Chef Cai Hao used lighter scallion juice and ginger juice to create contrast, presenting two separate flavor profiles, letting the umami shine later.
In “French-style Chaoshan cuisine” fine dining, guests are not allowed to spit out bones; shells must be removed. Chef Cai said: “Version 1.0, more than a decade ago, was not yet mature; we used young female crabs from Zhongshan. The 3.0 version of red king crab can be paired with a relatively heavier peaty whiskey.”
Chef Cai said that pairing with the 1995 vintage would make it more robust and fun.
- 🃏 - Bowmore 1995
Indeed, this Cai Hao Selection 🃏 Bowmore 1995 had notes of salty sea salt, walnut oil, and arugula. I loved its bitterness, which stimulated the deep-sea saltiness of the red prawn, followed by a tide-like returning sweetness. This Bowmore balanced me so well I lost all composure.
Regarding the succession of ginger and scallion flavors, this single cask is complex and profound: green fruits, citrus, peat, and minerality interweave—clean, rich, with a faint rosé salt aftertaste; robust and full-bodied yet smooth, lingering.
Only 227 bottles. Bowmore distillery is located on Islay in western Scotland, the oldest distillery there, founded in 1774. Bowmore’s No. 1 Vaults is the world’s oldest whiskey maturation cellar, the only one built below sea level, constantly influenced by the sea, adding marine flavors. Superior sherry casks bestow the highest quality, intense aromatics, and dried fruit flavors.
Every dish was classic. This dish was the highlight of radishes! Jade Belt White Jade Ring used white radish from Weining, Guizhou, braised until infused with stock. In the center, Australian scallops, blue angel shrimp, 5J Spanish ham, roast duck dice, and crab meat came together; the ocean freshness also seeped with the oiliness of ham.
Chef Cai Hao’s “Love Noodles”—hot and sour noodles, always ordered double by someone, made with Italian balsamic vinegar and Shanxi aged vinegar, lightly sour and mildly spicy with a sweet finish, achieving the ultimate balance. Homemade hand-pulled noodles with excellent chew.
The finale was Avocado Bird’s Nest, the divine dessert from Good Wine Good Cai. Inspired by Chaoshan taro paste. Roasted plum powder brought together two different textures of Eastern and Western ingredients for the first time. Silky smooth with the Q-elasticity and slight chewiness of bird’s nest, refreshingly sweet and never enough.
“Change” and “Preservation”
When selecting old whiskies, Chef Cai Hao tends to focus on young ones with vitality; when choosing young casks, he leans toward maturity, aiming for the best balanced taste.
“There is ‘change’ and ‘preservation’ in taste. Personally, I think the development of cuisine is even more so.
I do not see contemporary dining aesthetics as trends performed by leaders of taste and pioneers of sensory experience. I believe the current state of Chinese banqueting stems from a simple belief: ‘change’ coupled with ‘preservation’ in the transition between old and new.
Today, it is easy to talk about ‘change,’ hard to talk about ‘preservation,’ and even harder to talk about ‘preservation with change.’ Not to mention the intense competition in the ever-evolving dining market, just the changes in quality ingredients from their origins—due to uncertainties in environment, people, and produce—confront culinary masters with the question of how to remain calm in the face of change, regardless of age, still spirited.
Chef Cai Hao’s words enlightened many chefs: “Western chefs do everything from preparation to execution; none is dispensable. Chinese cuisine solidifies skills to enable quick output. But in today’s consumption concept, experience prevails: experiencing the chef’s mind, working style, and supporting slow, sculpted, personalized expression.”
“This approach might not be welcomed in the mainstream. They won’t see you as out of place; it’s easy to deny others, but extremely hard to constantly deny oneself. So I once said in ‘Chef’s Glory,’ the dishes you make with your hands are enough; now you need to cook with your thoughts, combine thoughts into flavors, then no matter what ingredient you see, it’s fine.”
“But such sudden inspiration, allowing oneself to advance cognitively through imagination—very few in China can achieve it. Everyone is eager to show they are a master, because only by being called a master can they gain social status. The key is continuous learning, persistently outputting what a master should express, always having new ideas.”
“Everything is changing. In fact, for loyal diners with increasingly refined palates to feel that the signature dishes have not changed, you have to work on ‘change.’ You cannot say ‘You grew up eating my dishes,’ nor can I say ‘I grew up reading your articles.’ Let’s grow together!” Chef Cai Hao laughed.
I thought to myself: “Extremes meet, returning to youth.”
I heard there will be another such four-hand collaboration at Grand Lisboa Palace Macau. Looking forward to it. 🤫
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Consultant for “Once Upon a Bite”
Host of “The Divine Table”
Producer of “Wild China” and “Life is Worth 369”
