The chef's farm stays down-to-earth, and Daoxun cuisine shows that eating well is an act of kindness

"I basically don't have a fixed menu. We discuss it as a team and settle on a rough format, then it just depends on what ingredients I get that day," explains Hsieh Li-kuang, owner of Daoxun Friendly Cuisine, his eyes scanning the organic vegetables on the shelf as he looks for the items on his list. Last March, he opened a green restaurant in a renovated old house in a small alley on Section 1, Minsheng Road in Tainan, China, serving Japanese-style omakase. The ingredients are seasonal produce grown with friendly farming methods, and beside the door he set up a roughly 6.6-sq-m vegetable garden growing perilla, white prickly amaranth, South African leaf and other plants. Not only does it supply ingredients, but the kitchen scraps from the restaurant are composted and returned to this same plot.

To gain a deeper understanding of ingredients, before opening the restaurant Hsieh Li-kuang specifically went to Xuyuan Natural Farm in Tongluo, Miaoli, for a work exchange, helping with weeding and harvesting and learning about how crops grow. "At first I just wanted to understand what organic farming looked like. Later, after living here, I realized it's not just about understanding ingredients, but also about feeling the vitality of the land." This experience, which he regards as "down-to-earth," deeply shaped his view of ingredients and gave him stronger empathy for farmers.

(This article was funded by the Jianzhen Environmental Education Foundation for personnel expenses, but with absolutely no interference in news topic selection or interview writing, ensuring news independence.)