Sum Made Restaurant has introduced a new menu that puts a creative spin on Cantonese cuisine.
Keen Cantonese food lovers will be thrilled to learn that a new menu unveiled at Sum Made has extended it to include flavours of modern Guangzhou.
Located in Albany on Auckland’s North Shore, Sum Made is possibly the city’s largest Chinese Restaurant and specializes in exquisite Cantonese cuisine.
The restaurant has two levels, with its own internal lift and six private dining suites with one that seats 24 people and has a private karaoke corner complete with sofa seats.
Started by the Zhong family, who were originally from the South China region of Guangdong, chefs were headhunted from top restaurants across their hometown region for the restaurants.
Family spokeswoman Chloe Zhong said after more than a year of operations, the chefs were challenged to come up with new dishes and the best were selected for the new menu.
“Usually when people think of Cantonese restaurant food, it’s usually things like sweet and sour pork, lobster noodles and maybe steamed fish, but modern Guangzhou is so much more than that,” Zhong said.
“Guangzhou today comprises migrants from all over, and we challenged our chefs to come out with flavours that reflect new Canton.”
Zhong said it took three months since the planning started to the launch of the new menu which debuted on December 6.
The first dish we had was the prawns coated in mango sauce. Covered in a dark yellow-hued coat of mango and enhanced with a slightly citrusy sauce, it can be described as truly Cantonese - famed for its ‘sweet and sour’ flavours.
From how the prawn looks, you tend to picture the savoury salted egg prawn, but this is nothing like it. It is a refreshing way to start dinner and has a stimulating effect on the appetite.
Then we moved on to the chicken thigh with century egg, served with a side of jellyfish salad. A truly interesting and surprising blend of textures and flavours, but the pairings truly work.
Next was the pan-fried wasabi beef ribs - this is probably one of my favourite - the wasabi wasn’t overpowering but just enough to give it that sharp but appetising quality.
Then came the diced beef stir-fried with tea leaves, where garlic, pepper, onions and capsicum were added to this aromatic dish where the star was the meltingly tender beef chunks.
The salt and pepper, fragrant pork trotters were everyone’s favourite of the night. The dish barely sat on the table for three minutes before every piece was gone.
In Canton, pork trotters are considered one of the most delicious parts of the pig as well as having great health benefits because of their rich collagen content.
These flavourful trotters, which we were told had to be braised in traditional Chinese herbs and aromatics until tenderized before they were deep fried to crispy and seasoned, are truly a creative way to have them.
Even the carbs that’s usually served towards the end of the dinner were no ordinary fried rice or fried noodles.
The wagyu beef fried rice with secret mushroom sauce had plenty of wok hei, and stir fried yam with crispy rice was indeed another surprise. This is the first time I’ve had yam this way and it’s delicious.
For the sweet finale, we had the tofu pudding - which was less sweet and lighter than the ones we usually get at other yum cha places - so it did make me feel less sinful having it. It’s more like a cross between almond jelly and doufufa.
There’s so many more interesting things I’d like to try on Sum Made’s new menu - honeycomb batter-fried oysters, deep fried stuffed pork intestines, free-range chicken braised with dried hairy fig and braised squid with konjac, to name a few. But this is for another day.
From the dinner experience tonight, I think diners can be assured that the new menu offerings are masterfully blended and offer a multi-faceted sensorial experience.
Bee Keng Koh dined as a guest of Sum Made Restaurant
Sum Made 心美
11 Davies Drive, Albany, Auckland 0632
Ph 09 626 6866
