Good farmers who support Hualien with cuisine! Ninety-five percent of the ingredients of Master Ming's restaurant come from the place, describing "Hualien flavor" with delicious food.

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"I think the value of being a chef lies in being able to use food to cheer up people who are depressed." Chuang Yu-hsien, the current chef of Hualien Ming Shifu Restaurant, says that 95% of the ingredients come from Hualien, from stewed chicken soup with red sage and purple rice, to home-grown flowers and black pork in the local duck breast restaurant, to homemade sausages made by tribal horses, to loofah, sticky rice peppers, tomatoes and grazing eggs and milk. Ming Shifu inherits two generations of father and son, insisting on using Hualien ingredients to make a table of "Hualien flavor" cuisine.

Lobster, glutinous rice pepper, loofah and other production of combination plate, loofah must be accurately controlled in the medium ripe (Photography_Lin Yijun) inherited three generations of chef family, Zhuang Yuxian from the kitchen experience

"In the past, Dad was in charge of the outside world, and I was in charge of the kitchen." The one who inherited the name of "Ming Master" was Zhuang Yuxian, the son of Ming Master Zhuang Zhongming. From his grandfather to him, it seemed that the DNA of three generations was set to become a cook, a family with a spatula, raising the whole family and feeding many people.

Chuang Yu-hsien recalls that when his family moved from Ilan to Hualien, his father founded Master Ming Restaurant more than 30 years ago."When we were in Ilan, our family also opened a restaurant. Grandpa was a chef, and so was Dad." For Chuang Yu-hsien, becoming a cook, returning home to help, and taking over is nothing more than natural.

At the age of 15, Chuang Yuxian began to help in the restaurant kitchen and studied catering. Since 2006, Chuang Yuxian began to participate in various cooking competitions, from domestic specific themes and ingredients to international competitions, winning silver medals in the TCAC Asian Cuisine Team Competition. After leaving school, Chuang Yu-hsien first went to an internship at Ilan's Du Xiaoyue Restaurant. He believes that that internship laid the foundation for returning home to help: "One hour to prepare 500 people's cooking, very testing kitchen arrangements."

Chuang Yu-hsien (Photo_Lin Yi-kwan)95% of Hualien's ingredients remain unchanged from father to son

After two years of internship, Zhuang Yuxian became the most reliable pillar of his father's infield. The two of them supported Master Ming's signboard internally and externally, and let more people know Master Ming better."Dad can rest assured to give speeches, teach classes and demonstrate cooking outside, because I am in the shop." After Chuang Chung-ming's death two years ago, Chuang Yu-hsien officially took over Master Ming's Restaurant.

From his father to Zhuang Yuxian, what remains unchanged is the insistence on local ingredients. Zhuang Yuxian said that after his father started running Master Ming's restaurant, the ingredients used crops, meat and aquatic products produced by local farmers and fishermen. After he took over, he still used local ingredients."95% of the ingredients are Hualien."

Contract, buy vegetables, grow your own, fresh and carbon-reduced ingredients on the ground

At 6:30 in the morning, Zhuang Yuxian came to Hualien fruit and vegetable market to buy vegetables, then went to Chongqing market and Meilun market,"These three markets are different, fruit and vegetable market has the most things, Chongqing market can meet special farmers, Meilun market can buy the freshest fish goods."

Master Ming's Restaurant could accommodate nearly 800 people at the same time, and the amount of ingredients used every day was quite astonishing."We have contracts to cook, buy vegetables, and grow our own food." Chuang Yu-hsien explains that ingredients such as rice, meat, and beans that are normally used are fixed with farms, fresh leafy vegetables, and special ingredients such as indigenous crops are bought at vegetable markets, while decorative ingredients such as pansy and radish leaves are planted around restaurants.

The chef's job is not only in the kitchen, but also in the daily task of taking care of the flowers and ingredients planted around the restaurant."Only when you have personally planted and seen how the vegetables grow will you know how to cook them to taste good." Zhuang Yuxian said that it is the chef's responsibility to know the ingredients and make them perfect, and to know the ingredients must go out of the kitchen to do it.