The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World

By JULIETTE ROSSANT We know something about what happens in restaurants. We've watched from our seats in the dining room, the kitchen, on television, or even worked in one. We can guess at what drives the owners, the chefs, the cooks, waiters and managers. We probably can guess at what their lives and aspirations are – they are much like our own. But what of would we make of a restaurant in China? Most of us don't really know much about what happens in a Chinese restaurant. And what happens there can tell us as much about Chinese society as our restaurants would tell the world about who we are. Watch Sundance Channel's The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World. The show premieres in the U.S. on Monday, August 4th, at 9pm ET/PT and airing on three successive Mondays. It is a four-part documentary that profiles life in and around the West Lake Restaurant in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. Directed by Weijun Chen, it is an exquisite, intimate, and perceptive portrait of Chinese society. See it, record it, watch it over and over, and show it to your kids. Don't watch the Olympics without first learning about China through this documentary. The restaurant is set on 14 acres, with over 100 private dining rooms, pavilions, halls, Imperial Hall, and various stages for lives performances. It serves 5,000 diners daily and employs over 800 people, including 300 chefs in five kitchens. One hall holds over 800 diners on two levels with a stage for Chinese song and dance spectacles. Each of the four episodes revolves around the owner, Qin Linzi, or President Qin as she is known, spotlighting employees, guests, and celebrations that occur in the restaurant. The first episode opens with President Qin leading her workers in a rousing song: "Solidarity is harder than iron, harder than steel," she shouts out. We get a tour of the restaurant, see employees decked out like imperial courtiers, and chefs sweating over blazing hot woks preparing imperial dishes like Longevity Pork. We learn about how Qin was able to build the world's largest Chinese restaurant and maintain her exacting standards. Qin faces the same kinds of business challenges that a restaurateur in America might face: talent retention, food costs, and banquets where too many diners show up. What is different is how she handles the challenges, and the additional impact of the Communist Party, her husband and family place on her. Qin takes chefs to the countryside to pick ingredients for a feast. Though each chef specializes in one dish that they cook day in and day out, she believes that they need to get out and taste new things so they won't become robots. We see the wild ducks from a lake that she buys for the restaurant - we see one killed by puncturing its chest with a chopstick and then removing the heart. She makes a trip to a local village that has the best tofu in order for her chefs to learn their secrets – it the water, so they truck water three hours back to the restaurant. Serve better tofu and instead of selling 10 tofu dishes, she hopes to sell 100. The chefs participate in a timed cooking competition – the real Iron Chef. Here we finally see them actually cook one dish from start to finish. The chefs take live fish, gut and clean them, deep fry the bodies in hot oil and serve them with a sauce, while the fish is still breathing. Snakes are cleaned and gutted and sauced in seconds, with the muscle still pulsating. The performance seems authentic, with the kitchen help and waitresses cheering them on. It may seem gruesome or cruel, but it is the kind of theatrical food that is at the heart of the restaurant's success. In the following episodes, a former employee marries a rich developer and is showered with gifts; a mother's 80th birthday is commemorated at the restaurant, and the "flying out of the nest ceremony (one-month birthday) of a child. The film portrays the strong women and men who run the restaurants, the harsh living conditions of the workers and poor pay, and Qin's sincere belief that she is improving the lives of all of them and their families, even as she rakes in huge amounts of money. She ends with the restaurant's third anniversary party thrown for 2,000 guests. Qin practically drinks a toast at each table and still manages to lead a patriotic song on stage. She says at one point: Happiness in food and happiness in service. The best service I can provide is to socialize with my customers. Like a celebrity owner, she aims to spread the West Lake brand around the world. The documentary captures the individual stories and the frenetic energy of the restaurant. Whether it is the waiter who wants to open a restaurant like West Lake, or the dancer who just wants a rich husband so she can stop parading herself, it puts our reality TV shows about restaurants to shame. Previous articles: Fuchsia Dunlop: Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper Las Chinese Chef: Interview with Nicole Mones Nicole Mones: The Last Chinese Chef Year of the Golden Pig: Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook Susur: A Culinary Life Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to Super Chef