Huang became known for his version at Asian Jewels Seafood, a dim sum restaurant in Flushing, before coming to Hakka Cuisine. The Blossom Chicken is a spin on the Jiangnan hundred-flowers chicken - a dish that became popular in Guangzhou in the 1920s - that was braised in chrysanthemum-infused broth (hence the name). “A lot of the food is very soulful, rustic, and hearty.”Īnd yet the cooking on display by Chef Ming Huang is playful and technically dazzling, iterating on Cantonese and Hakkanese classics.
“I have always appreciated Hakka cuisine because it’s so down-to-earth and humble,” says Grace Young, the cookbook author, who hosted a dinner at the restaurant the other week.
Many preserved ingredients - salted duck eggs, dehydrated greens, dried seafood - give the dishes heft and salt. The itinerant nature of Hakka history is in the food. As a result, most Hakka live in Guangdong, and Hakkanese food has intertwined with Cantonese food while maintaining its own identity over the years. Hakka, which means “guest families” in Cantonese, refers to the history of multiple forced mass migrations that pushed the Hakka people out of the central plains southward toward the coastline. Owner Wade Li, who grew up in Huizhou just north of Hong Kong, says he wanted a restaurant that reminded him of home. Hakka Cuisine, which opened on Division Street last September, is the first restaurant of its kind in Manhattan’s Chinatown. It’s a beautiful mindfuck: Just because it looks like a chicken doesn’t mean it is. There’s an audible crust of fried mei fun - rice vermicelli - on the bottom. But bite into a piece, and suddenly you’re eating shrimp, bouncy and flecked with creamy cubes of taro. At first glance, the Hakka Blossom Chicken at Hakka Cuisine looks like a flattened, deboned bird cut into rectangles with crackling brown skin on top, two wings flanking its sides, and a head as a souvenir. You would be forgiven if you thought you were just eating chicken.
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