Foshan Shunde Jindeng Village Restaurant 顺德金登饭店 · 乡村私房菜 📞 27799223 📞 18934308391 |Tony Johor Kaki Travels for Food · Heritage · Culture

This is the kind of dining experience I willingly to fly hours for. I am told that in Guangdong (and around China) there are many such village type eating places 乡村私房菜. I would love to come back for itineraries made up entirely of eateries like 金登饭店 Jindeng Village Restaurant. You know...., others cafe or bar hop, I love village restaurant hopping.

They are rustic village homes repurposed into restaurants.

Despite major conversion works at 金登饭店, it still has the rural homestead 家乡 feel which I like.

Foshan_Shunde_Jindeng_Village_Restaurant_顺德金登饭店_乡村私房菜

Menu on the wall - the daily specials. I like the gritty unpretentious feel at Jindeng Village Restaurant 金登饭店. No effort at aesthetics but it's beauty in my eyes.

The everyday menu. I suggest studying this before coming to avoid hasty decisions and regret 🫢 I mean, with so many places to visit, we may never come this way again.

Lock me in in this private room, please! 😋

Promise I won't try to run away without finishing my food 🫢

Live little mitten crabs. In the heart of the Pearl River Delta, Jindeng Village Restaurant serves fish, prawn, crab and other water life from the Pearl River and its tributaries.

Enough walking around, let's eat.

煎双饼(鱼饼和猪肚饼) Fried dace fish cake & pork tripe cake. Delicious tender savoury nibbles while waiting for the main courses to be delivered.

香煎鲮鱼腩 Pan fried dace fish belly. This is one of 金登饭店's signatures.

So deliciously sweet savoury, these golden "coins" of soft tender crisp pan fried dace fish bellies.

蒸鲮鱼嘴 Steamed dace fish head. I find this photogenic 🫢

But, it's all flavour, all bones and no meat (almost). Steamed together with soy sauce, fermented bean paste, scallion, and chili pepper which gave it a layer of savoury umami taste with a subtle bit of chili heat.

There're some (not much) soft tissue besides the sharp hard head bones. I had just one and turned my attention to the other dishes 😀 This dish is ideal for slow eating but today we were having many dishes and many restaurants on our itinerary 😄

Restaurants in Shunde make many dishes with dace or Chinese mud carp fish. It is ubiquitous in Shunde cuisine.

干逼竹肠排 Dry fried intestines. This dish is special.

It's a unique technique, I have never seen before. The intestine and ribs were marinated in a robustly savoury sauce, then baked in a wok i.e. heated up to high temperature in a covered wok over fire.

This superheated technique burns through woks in double quick time but the delicious caramelisation of the sauce and layer of subtle crispness over the tender spongy 爽脆 intestine makes it worth it.

Mind Blown

This was my first time encountering this dish. A memorable experience.

哈喇焖节瓜 Crabs stewed with hairy gourd.

Not much meat in the tiny crabs. Most of their crustacean umami leached into the hairy gourd. This dish is all about the sweet soft stewed hairy gourd slices which sponged up the crabs' umami and savouriness from soy sauce.

I used to eat hairy gourd frequently when I was a child but hairy gourd dishes became scarce over the years in our sunny island.

私厨碌鹅 If roast goose isn't your thing, try braised goose.

The goose meat in meaty chunks, tender juicy, rich with sweetish goose flavour complemented by the savoury stewing stock.

The goose meat was great but the thick slabs of pomelo skin underneath is the real reason some people order braised goose instead of roast goose.

The thick soft pomelo skin sponged up the complex blend of flavours from the goose and the stewing sauce. Love it. This dish reminded me of my grandma who was from Shunde 顺德 - she used to cook dishes with pomelo skin.

路边鸡 Poached free range chicken. Another of 金登饭店's signatures.

People in Guangdong (which included Hainan island until 1988) like their poached chicken to be tender but relatively firm with a subtle chewiness, moist and has a subtle chicky sweet taste. The chicken is served without any dressing. The yellow hued skin is smooth and softly crunchy. I prefer my poached chicken this way.

蒸黄沙蚬 Steamed yellow sand clams steamed with aromatics and rice wine. Little meat, all umami savoury flavours. Wonderful for slow dining when you have the time - don't need many dishes, tiny soft crunchy chewy morsels with boiled white rice 😋 (Similar to what we call la la in Singapore and Malaysia but smaller and thinner shelled.)

鲮鱼大蕉汤 Dace fish (again) and plantain soup.

Dace fish and plantain sweetness complemented by various fruits and aromatics for a delicious medium bodied sweet savoury tonic.

捞起陈村粉 Chen Chun rice noodles.

Just like when in Ipoh (Malaysia) must taste their Ipoh rice noodles, in the Pearl River Delta, must taste Chen Chun 陈村 rice noodles. Some people say it is the water, others say maybe it is the type of rice.

Personally, in addition to rice and water, the blend of sauce is also what made Chen Chun rice noodle stand out for me. Here at 金登饭店, in addition to savoury and sweet, there is a taste of sweet tangy preserved plum which made the flavours extremely interesting to me.

菜心远(蒜茸炒) The obligatory greens beautifully executed with oil, soy sauce and aromatics (garlic). They have another version stir fried with lard and lard croutons. I would love to try that next time (if I ever come this way again).

金登饭店 is a place that made me wish to come back to the Pearl River Delta and do food trips with itineraries entirely of homestead / village restaurants 乡村私房菜之旅.