Song Yingwen

WHEN humid summer heat gives way to cool autumn, lamb, usually considered in traditional Chinese medicine theory as something to be consumed during winter, becomes popular.

Among the restaurants that claim to sell authentic fresh Dongshan lamb from Hainan, which is famous all over China for its sheep, Dongshan Lamb Restaurant in the Shazui area is one of the oldest and most popular ones.

“I don’t know about the others, but I can give you my words that lamb offered in my restaurant is flown from Hainan right after the sheep are slaughtered on the day,” said Wu Guoxiong, owner of the restaurant who resigned from a telecom company and started the eatery 11 years ago.

The high quality of the food seems to be the main factor that draws patrons to the poorly decorated restaurant. Located on Jindi Food Street in Shazui, which may be demolished soon to make way for new land projects, Dongshan Lamb looks just like most ordinary restaurants that are found across Guangdong. The undeniable popularity of the restaurant is evident after nightfall, when the fragrance of lamb dishes spills out of the place amid the laughter of patrons who pack the establishment.

Dining at Dongshan Lamb begins with, of course, lamb. The starters here are not peanuts or dried turnips, but instead chopped entrails of sheep with pickled vegetables, lamb chop with abalone juice and tofu made from sheep’s blood.

The Cantonese believe that the best way to present fresh food is to boil it, which requires minimum seasoning and thus can bring out the natural sweetness. That’s why the most popular dish here is poached lamb (38 yuan, US$5), served either cold or hot, thinly sliced and elegantly arranged. Dip the lamb in the soy sauce with garlic, which is said to be prepared using a secret method, and eat it with sliced celery. The sweetened tenderness of lamb mixes well with the crispy celery and makes the dish a good combination of textures and tastes.

Another specialty of the restaurant is soups made of lamb. Popular soups include bone soup, soup of sheep placenta and soup of sheep brain (238 yuan).

Scary as they might sound to some people, others believe soups made from these parts of sheep are nourishing, healthy, and, most important of all to ladies, good for the skin.

The soups can first serve as hotpot stock. The restaurant provides chicken as the hotpot ingredient. After finishing chicken and lamb placenta or sheep brain hotpot, the creamy soup that has absorbed the essence of the ingredients is ready for tasting.

In case you want to try something other than lamb, the restaurant also offers authentic Cantonese dishes and seafood.

Dining at the restaurant costs around 80 yuan for each person.