Double Fifth | Hutong

Double Fifth festival and celebrating Northern Chinese cooking

The ‘Double Fifth Festival’ is also known by other names such as Duanwu Festival or Dragon Boat Festival, but due to the festival falling on the fifth day of the fifth month in the Chinese calendar, it has gained the popular name of ‘Double Fifth’.

There are various legends about the origins of this festival. The most familiar story is in regards to observing the death of poet Chu Yuan, who drowned on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in 278 B.C. Dragon boat races are held on this day, symbolic of the attempt to rescue Chu Yuan.

The ‘Double Fifth’ taste journey begins…

With the Double Fifth festival only a few weeks away, we are excited to start sharing with you the dishes which will form our special menu – five courses each exploring one of the five tastes.
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Celebrating Double Fifth: five dishes, five tastes

Hutong Monkfish fillet in sour broth

Saturday 20th June is the fifth day of the fifth lunar month or ‘Double Fifth’, a very special date in the Chinese calendar. The Double Fifth is the day of the traditional Dragon Boat Festival, an ancient tradition dating back to the death of China’s revered patriot poet Qu Yuan on that day in 278BC. In despair at hearing of the capture of his beloved country’s capital, Yuan committed ritual suicide by wading into the Miluo river.
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Introducing our 8 new anniversary dishes

Since we opened in June 2013, there have been very few changes to the a la carte menu at Hutong, a reflection of the enduring popularity of many dishes. But knowing our guests’ appetite for discovering the flavours of northern China, to mark our first anniversary of opening we have introduced eight new dishes which we are sure will quickly become as popular as those they join.
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Beef braised in aged vinegar and ginger with vegetable rice

Traditional zongzi sweet glutinous rice dumplings

Suzhou and zongzi conclude our ‘Double Fifth’ odyssey

Our very special ‘Double Fifth’ menu marking the Dragon Boat Festival is available from today until Monday 2nd June, and the final stop on our culinary tour of China is Suzhou, in the east of the country about 6o miles from Shanghai.

Suzhou is best known for its exquisite gardens and the canal network, now sadly mostly lost to development, for which the city was once known as ‘the Venice of the Orient’. The gardens however remain, and their delicate appearance is reflected in the subtlety of the region’s cuisine.
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Hutong double fifith menu 27th May - 2nd June

Sichuan and the meaning of ‘ma la’

Few dishes could better represent the famously fiery cuisine of Sichuan, one of the five regions to feature on our ‘Double Fifth’ menu earlier this year, than our Ma la chilli prawns. ‘Ma la’ comes from two Chinese characters meaning, respectively, ‘numbing’ 麻 and ‘spicy (hot)’ 辣 and describes the sensation in the mouth the dish creates.
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Shandong province is in north-east China

Our ‘Double Fifth’ journey continues north to Shandong

Continuing our journey through the culinary regions of China, leading up to our Dragon Boat Festival celebrations later this month, this week we travel north to Shandong. Shandong’s exquisite cuisine, also known as Lu cuisine, features widely on our menu, but for this special menu our chefs have created a completely new dish.
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Double Fifth: our journey takes us to Guangdong

Continuing from last week’s introduction to our special ‘Double Fifth’ menu marking the tradition of the Dragon Boat Festival, our culinary voyage this week takes us to Guangdong, the populous south-east coastal province.