Bingsheng Taste in Guangzhou near Haiyin Bridge 炳胜能品味(海印总店) ☏ +86 20 3428 6910

When come to Shunde and Guangzhou, of course, must enjoy their iconic raw fish or yee sang 鱼生 dish.

炳胜品味(海印总店) Bingsheng Taste is a yee sang or raw fish specialist, our local guide told us. Bingsheng Taste has several outlets including in Shenzhen.

We went to the Haiyin Bridge outlet which is located at the southern end of the beautiful Haiyin Bridge 廣州海印橋. This is Bingsheng Taste's headquarters 总店 where 炳胜 started as a street side stall 大排档 three decades ago. At that time, they were most famous for their Shunde style yee sang.

海鱼生(例) RMB138. The sliced 鲈鱼生 raw sea bass fish came spread on top of a round tray of ice. The ice was covered by a plastic film, which kept water from the fish slices.

Yeah, this is the grandfather of Singapore lou hei yee sang but with different aromatics and sauces, and chosen for flavour rather than auspiciousness. There's radish, kaffir lime leaf, ginger, chili pepper, fried taro strips, peanut, etc.

Too complicated or distracting for me - I just give my raw fish a dash of peanut oil and a sprinkle of salt to make me feel safer 🤭

This was very nice and quite unlike sashimi (Japanese style raw fish).

The translucent silvery flesh was tender chewy like a jelly gummy (Q Q 爽口), which was a surprise compared to sashimi.

The fish was sweet, fresh clean tasting 鲜甜 with a subtle complementary overlay of peanut oil and saltiness.

Different from all the different raw fish I had before from all the years of lou hei yee sang.

On a side note, Singapore and Malaysia media regularly trigger traffic by recycling the "who invented yee sang" meme. The Singapore lou hei yee sang is derived from the Shunde way of eating yee sang and people in China have been eating raw fish this way for over 2,000 years.

霞美捞手撕文昌鸡 half bird RMB168. Hakka style salt bake chicken was also high on our bucket list of things to eat.

Expecting the bird to be served chopped in chunks and with bone, I was a little surprised that it came pulled and boneless. It was also dressed with peanut, sesame seed, sauce, aromatics, etc.

The slivers of chicken meat were tender, moist, chicky sweet with a complementary gentle smooth saltiness. The intensity of sweet saltiness was slightly higher than salt baked chicken I tasted in Ipoh and Johor Bahru.

糖制黑叉烧 (肥点) RMB108 Signature black char siew.

Soft, tender fatty cut with savoury and porcine sweet flavours. Compared to Kuala Lumpur char siew, the best KL renditions have more layers in their savoury sweetness e.g. Yoong, Spring Golden. This version we were having in Guangzhou was relatively flat tasting savoury sweet in comparison.

煎育尖椒炒吊片 RMB68. Spicy stir fried squid dish.

白古海油泡无骨鱼片 RMB88. Stir fried fish slices.

上汤清炒云南油麦菜 (蒜蓉炒) RMB58. The roughage we need for the day.

招牌菠萝包 RMB38 each.

We requested the staff to portion out the three bolo buns 菠萝包 for seven of us which they happily obliged. Service quality in China is high 👍

The bolo buns are airy hollow inside with a lightly crisp crust outside. The bread is sweet and fluffy chewy. The inside has a dollop of not too sweet pineapple jam. This Guangzhou rendition is very different from its Hong Kong cousin. Don't compare - appreciate their differences and enjoy both.

All said, I still love the humbler HK style bolo bun with fragrant milk tea 🤭 Always remember this one in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada.

炳能品味 is a well appointed restaurant with contemporary decor and furnishings, serving traditional Cantonese cuisine 粤菜. Spacious main dining hall and several private rooms. Pricing is competitive. I will come back for the raw fish and Hakka salt bake chicken. Try other dishes too as everything we had this evening was nicely executed. I have their roast goose in mind 😄

I rate Bingsheng Taste a must visit, if you are a foodie visiting Guangzhou.

Our total bill for this meal including use of private room came to RMB854 (SG$157).

For our seven day foodie trip, our total shared food bill came to SGD200 per pax for the entire trip. There were six of us, and we also paid for our driver / guide's share as we invited him to join us during meals.