This venue has closed.
A few months on from opening
and Xingfu Li, the pedestrianised
complex that hosts savoury pie
shop Pie Society, audio-visual
Japanese restaurant Anthologia and
chilled out café Lazie is starting to
come into its own. One of the latest
entrants to the smart development
is upmarket Yunnanese eatery
Gathering Clouds (醉美云聚).
From Yunnanese owners who
used to work at Lost Heaven,
the large space features an
attractive modern interior
and a covetable outdoor
courtyard and balcony. The
elegant environs help
justify the elevated
price tags on paper, and thankfully, the food also mostly
lives up to expectations.
The menu – compared to other
Yunnanese favourites like Lotus
Eatery and Secret Haven – is
compact, but includes numerous
classics. From the appetisers, the
Dali flavour fried milk
(50RMB) is a great
place to start, and
although served with
a sweet chilli sauce
in lieu of the more
traditional rose jam,
the flakey, puffed up
triangles of milk are
tasty and filling. In a
similar vein, the rose
flower cakes (40RMB) are plump
and satisfying (albeit a touch soggy)
with a light pastry casing and a not-too-
sweet rose filling.
From among the poultry
offerings, the Dali tribe
chicken (78RMB)
plates up a pile
of slender
strips of
succulent
meat,
cooked
in a light
‘seven
spice’ dressing; the mix has a fragrant and
spicy zing.
Offering a similar spice kick is the
roasted beef (68RMB). The tender
pieces of meat arrive on a banana
leaf – more for show than traditional
cooking technique – and melt in the
mouth in a blaze of
citrus and chilli. It’s
crazy delicious.
If you’re after
some textural
diversity, opt for the
Pu’er fried pork ribs
(76RMB). Although
we were expecting
the meat to arrive
topped with tea
leaves, it’s actually a popular dish
from Pu’er the city, and instead
arrives topped with stringy slices of
lemongrass. The pork itself is chewy
but flavoursome, and if you don’t
mind navigating around the bones,
it’s worth the jaw workout.
At the higher end of the pricing
scale is the Yunnan ham with
matsutake mushrooms (120RMB).
The fungi are highly sought after
here, and often appear with a hefty
price tag, but even so this dish feels
expensive given the modest serving
size. Although the small scattering
of matsutake offers juicy and earthy bites when eaten alone, when
combined with the peppers and the
Yunnan ham, the flavour is dwarfed
by an overall saltiness.
Friendly service, beautiful decor
and carefully presented food
make Gathering Clouds a welcome
new addition to the city’s growing
crowd of Yunnanese restaurants.
It’s more expensive than many
of its competitors (particularly
the nearby Lotus Eatery), but it’s
also ambitiously trying to take
this cuisine more upmarket. In
this increasingly buzzing part of
Changning, we see Gathering Clouds
doing well for lunches and dinners,
particularly during the spring and
summer months when the terrace
will become a real asset.
