Restaurants
The world of Chinese fine food at Ming Dynasty
By STD
Jul 21, 2006, 12:50

If gastronomy provides a more practical way to understand an angle of a culture, then those wishing to have an insight into the ancient Chinese history do not need to go far and wide.

Khaisilk Corporation has sought to satisfy the need by opening a new restaurant named Ming Dynasty over the weekend in Ho Chi Minh City, where diners will have a chance to taste hundreds of Chinese food specialties, and to learn lessons on the history of China, particularly the Ming Dynasty.

It is the wide selection of Chinese fine food and the Chinese royal architecture that make the Ming Dynasty Restaurant stand out in the new urban area Phu My Hung.

Le Thi Ngoc Ha, general manager of Khaisilk restaurants, says Chinese food lovers can order their favorites from over 50 dim sum dishes and more than 300 famous specialties of Hong Kong. Ha adds more dim sum specialties will appear on the menu very soon.

Ha says to prepare for the opening of the 300-seat restaurant, management of Khaisilk Corporation traveled far to different restaurants in China, Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia to look for experienced chefs.

Luckily, Khaisilk Corporation has been able to recruit seven chefs who are experts in barbecue, steamed and deep-fried dishes, Hong Kong dim sum and the Chinese dishes that the corporation wants to promote at the new eatery.

The chefs can prepare authentic Chinese specialties and adjust the dishes to suite the tastes of Vietnamese, expatriates and tourists for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The dim sum specialties at the Ming Dynasty Restaurant are available in water chestnut pie with coconut cream, steamed custard cream bun, steamed rice roll with shrimp and beef, deep-fried dumpling, steamed sweet pumpkin dumpling and steamed chicken feet.

But food is just part one. Khaisilk Corporation built the two-storey Ming Dynasty Restaurant into a venue of food and architectural attractions as well.

The restaurant looks like other buildings in Ho Chi Minh City but different inside. It looks cozy and splendid inside that guests can immediately realize when they pass the main door.

The section just behind the main door is for tea drinking. Tools and tables are set up here for guests who dine at the Ming Dynasty Restaurant to try more than 10 types of Chinese and Vietnamese tea as well as watch the demonstration of the tea-making art.

The tea drinking section is separated from the dining rooms by doors, which were made like the doors of the palaces of the kings of Ming Dynasty. Inside the rooms, guests are greeted by not only smiling servers but also the statues of combatants, which are the copies of the statues seen in the Qin Shihuangdi tombs in China.

Khaisilk Corporation bought the copy statues in China and brought them to the Ming Dynasty Restaurant. The corporation also purchased artworks and carpets in China to decorate the eatery covering 3,000mē in Phu My Hung.

The corporation also brought home a lot of furniture, paintings and bags of spices from China to beautify along the ways to and in the dining rooms, which are named after the kings of the Ming Dynasty thriving from the 14th to the 17th centuries.

From the dining rooms, diners can enjoy the beauty of the garden and greenery of the restaurant while they have breakfast and lunch, and feel warm in the atmosphere filled with soft yellow lights from wooden lit lanterns on the ceiling during the dinnertime.

Harmonious Chinese music is turned on during the opening hours to arouse good appetite of guests and help them relax while dining at the Ming Dynasty Restaurant.

The Ming Dynasty Restaurant is one of the two restaurants that Khaisilk Corporation develops in Ho Chi Minh City.

   Ming Dynasty Restaurant
     Add: 23 Nguyen Khac Vien St, Dist 7, Ho Chi Minh City.
     Tel: (84-8) 411 5555.