Guangzhou (Canton) is the first stop on any gastronomic tour of China. Cantonese food or yuecai is celebrated as the king of Chinese cuisines, but most of the stuff that passes for Cantonese food outside China would end up in the garbage can of any self-respecting Cantonese native. But what exactly is good Cantonese food? Here is a guide to the basics of this complicated cuisine, kindly provided by chef Ou (pronounced Oh!) Weiliang of the Sampan Seafood Restaurant. The Sampan has earned a reputation as one of the finer Cantonese restaurants in Beijing, and it takes only a few mouthfuls of chef Ou's steamed prawn dumplings to see that this reputation is well deserved.

  Chef Ou learned the art of Cantonese cooking in Hong Kong after what he calls 'the gourmet revolution.' During the 1950s, Hong Kong was inundated with expert chefs from all over China. The city's rapid development as an international trading center also brought new, imported ingredients.

  Chefs in Hong Kong began to have access to ingredients like never before, and they began experimenting," chef Ou says as he runs his tongue along his lips for added emphasis.

  Variety is a hallmark of Cantonese cuisine, befitting the varied palates of the denizens of the busiest import/export zone in Asia. A well-balanced Cantonese meal is comprised of dishes made from subtly, incongruously-matched ingredients such as steamed cod fish with preserved duck-egg yolk and minced garlic, braised fresh crab meat with eggplant, sweet and sour beancurd with BBQ pork and, of course, endless plates of smaller steamed meat buns and fried dumplings that fall under the general category of dim sum.

  Like most New Yorkers, I think of dim sum as a Sunday afternoon excursion involving a few hours spent inside the Triple Eight Palace underneath the Manhattan bridge, randomly picking small dishes from buffet carts. However I have often felt oppressively full well into the evening after a Triple Eight brunch. But the dim sum served to me here is neither heavy nor greasy. This is as it should be, explains chef Ou. 

  "Cantonese food should be light, combining a greater variety of ingredients then other regional cuisines. If it's mediocre, you feel bloated; if it's good, you're hungry two hours later."

  Anyone who has travelled through Guangdong province has noticed that many animals considered pets elsewhere are thought of as ingredients for the pot down south. There is an old Cantonese saying "fei qin zou shou," which roughly translates as 'if it flies, swims or runs, you can eat it.' Chef Ou tells me that the reputation is not necessarily deserved, and that his restaurant serves very little in the way of endangered species. "For instance," he tells me "I wouldn't serve you snake meat during the warmer months - it's strictly a winter food."

  Nonetheless, most Chinese people can name at least one Cantonese dish that would not look out of place in an Indiana Jones movie: 'Tiger Fights Dragon'
(longhudou) is a delicacy consisting of a roast snake entwined around a roast cat.