Mount Tai Cuisine Guide

The three treasures of Mount Tai are Chinese cabbage, tofu and mountain spring water. Don’t laugh yet. The cabbage used is Mount Tai yellow-sprout Chinese cabbage. It tastes fresh, aids digestion, soothes restlessness and eases hangover. Mount Tai tofu is curdled with gypsum. Made with rich soybean milk, it is tender yet firm, snow-white, sweet and elastic. It will never turn mushy even after long boiling. The mountain spring water on Mount Tai is highly oxygenated, clean and low in hardness. The soup cooked with these three ingredients is known as the Three Delicacies Soup of Mount Tai. People often say that a trip to Mount Tai is incomplete without trying this dish. You can enjoy authentic Three Delicacies Tofu both in high-end restaurants and street eateries.

The most authentic cooking method requires fine tofu, premium cabbage and fresh spring water straight from the mountain. It is recommended to taste this dish near the foothills or alongside mountain springs on the hiking trail. Other popular tofu dishes widely available include tofu balls, pan-fried tofu, casserole tofu, creamy tofu soup, braised tofu, mutton stew with tofu, and scrambled eggs with tofu.

If you want to enjoy professional chef’s craftsmanship, go to Mount Tai Restaurant. Although the price is relatively high, the local dishes here are genuinely authentic.

Jianbing has long been a staple food for most people in Shandong. It stays cool in summer and warm in winter, and can be preserved for three to four months without spoilage. It had already become a daily household food in Tai'an no later than the Ming Dynasty.

Mount Tai Jianbing differs from pancakes made elsewhere in Shandong in three ways: First, the main raw material is millet or corn, and millet makes the finest pancakes. You can also add soybeans, buckwheat, sorghum, peanuts and other grains to make customized flavours. Second, the batter usually undergoes fermentation, creating three flavours: Sour pancakes with long fermentation, moderately sweet-and-sour pancakes with light fermentation, and sweet pancakes made from fresh batter with no fermentation. Third, Mount Tai Jianbing is as thin as cicada wings and nearly transparent. A pancake 70 centimetres in diameter weighs only about 50 grams.

Popular snacks made with Jianbing include savoury stuffed pancakes (filled with green onion, tofu or cabbage) and crispy sugar pancakes baked with millet flour and white sugar. Jianbing rolled with green Chinese onions is a well-known street food loved by everyone, young and old.

For homemade eating, buy pancakes from the stalls at the west entrance of Wazi Street. These stalls have run the business for more than a decade and serve local daily food with genuine taste. If you need gifts for friends, packaged gift pancakes are available at Uni-President Ginza north of the east entrance of our inn. Personally, I do not recommend them, for they lose the original flavour.

When talking about Mount Tai Jianbing, we have to mention its perfect match — mini mountain tofu. It is different from the tofu in the Three Delicacies. This home dish is cooked with wild mountain vegetables, vegetable stalks and soaked soybean dices. Common ingredients include radish tops, cabbage leaves, cauliflower stems, willow buds, sweet potato leaves, Siberian nitraria, elm seeds, bitter herbs, shepherd’s purse and chickweed. Almost all edible wild greens can be used.

No one knows its exact origin. Judging from the recipe, it was originally a cheap filler for poor working people in the old days. Later, it became a popular dish in families and restaurants across Tai'an, priced at roughly 10 yuan per serving, normally served with Jianbing pancakes. Pre-cooked semi-finished mini tofu with seasonal wild vegetables can be bought in local markets for just 3 yuan a bag. Simply stir-fry it with chopped green onions, then wrap it in crispy Jianbing — the taste is absolutely amazing.

The red-scale fish is an exclusive rare treasure of Mount Tai and was presented as an imperial tribute to the royal court in the Qing Dynasty. It inhabits mountain streams between 270 and 800 metres above sea level, usually less than 20 centimetres long, feeding mainly on algae and zooplankton. The mountain streams are rich in algae, with cold running winding water, abundant oxygen, neutral pH value and low mineral content. This unique ecological environment gives rise to the old saying: Red-scale fish never leave Mount Tai.

Together with oil fish and archfish from Erhai Lake in Yunnan, naked carp from Qinghai Lake and shad from Fuchun River, it is ranked among China’s Five Famous Freshwater Fish. Small yet brightly coloured, the red-scale fish boasts tender meat, delicate flavour, few bones, no fishy smell and high nutritional value.

It can be blanched or deep-fried. The most famous dish is Dragon and Phoenix Pearl Soup, in which the fish stands for dragon, and fish balls represent pearls. The finished dish features bright colour and fresh taste. Classic dishes include deep-fried red-scale fish, plain-boiled red-scale fish and phoenix-tailed red-scale fish.

In downtown Tai'an, only mid-sized and high-grade restaurants serve this fish. A single fish about 10 centimetres long costs 30 yuan. It is a little pricey. I have only tried it three times, and two meals were business expenses.

If you really want to taste it without overspending in big restaurants, head for East Imperial Trail on the eastern foot of Mount Tai. The scenery is beautiful, and red-scale fish here only cost around 12 yuan each. You can watch the fish being caught live from the pond and cooked right away. A full range of wild mountain vegetables are also available here.