Salad with ice cubes? Seriously?

When Marjan read the description, she thought: ‘Salad with crushed ice? Bizarre!’ But the ‘dish’ on the menu at Beijing restaurant Dadong nevertheless made her curious. And so she ordered it.

‘What’s the most bizarre thing you ate in China?’ I’m asked that very often. And then I have to answer with at least fried spiders or dog meat, otherwise the questioner is disappointed. But salad with ice cubes—that was what I found bizarre.

Who, what, why?

‘Is this even a dish?’ I thought. And also: ‘You have to be gutsy to put lettuce leaves with crushed ice on the menu for a decent price. Without dressing.’ Yet the ‘dish’ stayed on my mind. Who, what, why this? And so I ordered it.

Never had I tasted a fresher lettuce leaf.

The dish looked exactly as promised. Not buried under dressing. No misplaced tomatoes or garnish of julienned carrot. It was a plate of romaine lettuce under a layer of crushed ice, decorated with violets frozen into ice cubes. Nothing more and nothing less. ‘See? A scam.’ I thought.

More lettuce-y

Until I tasted one of those leaves, and then tasted it again, and eventually had to honestly admit that I had never eaten a fresher lettuce leaf. That the ice really works. It makes the leaf crunchier and the lettuce flavor fresher, crisper, more lettuce-y. Just as drying intensifies the flavor of ingredients, this turned out to intensify the flavor too, rather than dull it. Or water it down.

Easy points

‘That’ll be an easy win at the next neighborhood BBQ,’ I thought. Not that you can get away with it with every type of lettuce. It has to be a sturdy variety. And it must not already be wilted, but be incredibly, hyper-fresh. Just as you need the freshest eggs for poaching an egg, this only works with crisp, fresh lettuce.

The ultimate way to let the flavor of the product speak for itself.

And suddenly I realized: Dadong had thought about how to serve ultra-fresh lettuce at its absolute freshest. Like this. ‘Letting the flavor of the product speak for itself,’ is something you hear many chefs say, appropriately or otherwise. Dadong actually does it.

Ode to lettuce

An ode to lettuce. Brilliant in all its simplicity. And indeed: an easy win at that next neighborhood BBQ.