Chinese street food has come to Abu Dhabi. Dai Pai Dong, a newly opened restaurant at the Rosewood hotel on Al Maryah Island, brings to life traditional culinary skills and grandmothers’ recipes, offering authentic, mouthwatering dishes – from beef noodle soup to Kung Pao chicken – made with ingredients mainly sourced from China. The hotel’s executive sous chef, Siddharth Krishna, tells us the idea is to transport visitors to the streets of Hong Kong.
What inspired you to bring a Chinese street-food concept to the Rosewood?
Dai Pai Dong is a new concept to Abu Dhabi. You don’t find authentic Chinese street food here. It’s either American Chinese or modern Chinese. We believe Chinese street food is very appealing to the community, yet it is a scarce cuisine in the UAE. With Dai Pai Dong, we can include Chinese culinary skills that are, in a sense, dying: hand-pulled noodles, various kinds of dim sums and Chinese barbecue. We also wanted to keep our Rosewood philosophy of offering authentic food and concepts, while providing something not available in the region.
What makes Dai Pai Dong unique in a city overflowing with restaurants?
There are not that many authentic, casual Chinese restaurants in town. We set ourselves apart by the ambience, look and feel of the restaurant. We want to transport guests to the streets of Hong Kong. But most important, of course, is the food. Our culinary team came mostly from China and they use their family recipes at Dai Pai Dong. We source most ingredients from China, so we serve food that is as authentic as possible.
Tell us about the head chef.
Chef He Jia was an easy choice for head chef due to his strong and seasoned background of cooking authentic Cantonese food and his experience in top restaurants. He has great cooking skills, his style of food is simple and most of the sauces are homemade. He also adapts well to local taste buds with his creations, such as the ma po tofu with chicken and the bean curd claypot, both very popular on the menu.
There are many – favourites include har gow (prawn dim sum), beef short ribs with black pepper sauce, kung pao chicken, hand-pulled beef noodle soup, soy braised beef brisket and sweet and sour prawns, just to name a few.
What does the name mean?
Dai Pai Dong is a type of open-air food stall that used to be found all over Hong Kong. It literally means “restaurant with a big licence plate”. After the Second World War, the government issued licences to families of deceased and injured civil servants, allowing them to operate food stalls to earn a living. The size of the licence issued was considerably large, as a photograph of the licensee was required to appear on them.
• Dai Pai Dong, Rosewood Abu Dhabi, Al Maryah Island is open daily from noon to 11pm. To book, call 02 813 5552
sjohnson@thenational.ae
