Hualien's Good Farmers: Master Ming Restaurant Presents 95% Locally Sourced Hualien Flavor

"I think the value of being a chef lies in using food to lift up people whose spirits are low." Says Zhuang Yuxian, current head chef of Hualien's Master Ming Restaurant, where 95% of ingredients come from Hualien. From red sage and purple rice chicken soup, local duck breast with flowers grown by the restaurant, black pork with tribal maqaw homemade sausage, to local loofah, glutinous rice peppers, tomatoes, and pasture-raised eggs and milk -- Master Ming has carried on through two generations of father and son, insisting on using Hualien ingredients to create a table of "Hualien flavor" cuisine.

A chef family spanning three generations; Zhuang Yuxian grew up training in the kitchen

"In the past, Dad handled the outside, and I was in charge of the kitchen." The one who inherited the name "Master Ming" is none other than Master Ming himself -- Zhuang Yuxian, son of Zhuang Zhongming. From his grandfather to him, it seems three generations had their DNA set to become chefs. A family wielding spatulas raised the whole family and fed many people as well.

Zhuang Yuxian recalls that when the family first moved from Yilan to Hualien, his father founded Master Ming Restaurant over thirty years ago. "When we were in Yilan, our family also ran a restaurant. Grandpa was a chef, and Dad was too." For Zhuang Yuxian, becoming a chef, coming home to help, and taking over was the most natural thing in the world.

At 15, Zhuang Yuxian began helping in the restaurant kitchen and studied in culinary programs. Starting in 2006, Zhuang Yuxian began participating in various cooking competitions, progressing from domestic themed and ingredient-specific contests all the way to international competitions, winning a silver medal in the TCAC Asian Culinary Team Competition. After leaving school, Zhuang Yuxian first interned at Yilan's Du Xiaoyue Restaurant. He believes that internship laid the foundation for coming home to help: "We had to prepare five hundred servings in one hour -- it was a real test of kitchen organization."

95% Hualien local ingredients: an unchanging commitment from father to son

After two years of internship, he returned home to help, and Zhuang Yuxian became his father's most reliable pillar in the back of the house. Together they upheld the Master Ming name both internally and externally, and helped more people get to know Master Ming. "Dad can safely go out to give talks, teach classes, and demonstrate cooking, because I'm here at the restaurant." Two years ago, Zhuang Zhongming passed away, and Zhuang Yuxian formally took over Master Ming Restaurant.

From father to Zhuang Yuxian, what remains unchanged is the commitment to local ingredients. Zhuang Yuxian says that after his father first started running Master Ming Restaurant, all ingredients used were crops, meats, and seafood produced by local farmers and fishermen. After he himself took over, he still uses local ingredients. "95% of the ingredients are from Hualien."

Contract farming, market shopping, growing your own: local ingredients are fresh and reduce carbon emissions

At 6:30 in the morning, Zhuang Yuxian arrives at the Hualien Fruit and Vegetable Market to buy ingredients. Next, he still has to go to Chongqing Market and Meilun Market. "These three markets are all different. The fruit and vegetable market has the most variety, at Chongqing Market you can meet special farmers, and at Meilun Market you can buy the freshest seafood."

Master Ming Restaurant can accommodate nearly eight hundred people at once, and the amount of ingredients used daily is quite astonishing. "We have contract farming, we also buy at markets, and we also grow our own." Zhuang Yuxian explains that regularly used ingredients such as rice, meat, and beans come from fixed partner farms; fresh leafy vegetables and special ingredients such as indigenous crops are bought at the market; and garnish ingredients such as pansies and radish leaves are grown around the restaurant.

A chef's work is not only in the kitchen; caring for the plants and ingredients grown around the restaurant is also a daily task for the chefs. "Only after growing them yourself and seeing how the vegetables grow will you know how to cook them deliciously." Zhuang Yuxian says that knowing ingredients and letting them shine to perfection is a chef's responsibility, and getting to know ingredients requires stepping out of the kitchen.