When Gastronomy meets Art

Specifically, Dong believes that the so-called widely welcomed aesthetic of food is about the preliminary judgment of the flavor and shape. This equates to dishes with splendid flavors and widely-accepted aesthetic forms which indicate a unification of color, fragrance, flavor, and shape. 

Correspondingly, the aesthetic that fewer people favor is more closely connected to artistic expression, which adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the dishes and is based on their preliminary judgment. This may be conveyed by the flavors, ingredients, shape, or originality of the dishes.

Wensi tofu is a typical Huaiyang dish. A chef with superb knife skills must cut a piece of ordinary tofu into hair-thin strands and soak them in the soup, where they resemble a white chrysanthemum in full bloom. 

Dong believes that Wensi tofu is the most appealing when placed in a black container because of the dynamic juxtaposition between the two opposing colors of black and white. Seasoned with black truffle and sprinkled with squid ink, the white tofu strands are postmodernism incarnate. 

Nespresso Indian coffee is a blend of fine Arabica coffee beans with a dash of Robusta coffee beans from the southern regions of India. It has a bold and spicy flavor that pairs wonderfully with the braised cuttlefish roe soup, a Shandong dish. 

While there are a plethora of different zongzi fillings (a traditional Chinese dish consisting of glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves), one constant is that they are all wrapped in rice. Dong's Iberian ham zongzi, however, is nothing like a traditional zongzi. 

Dong substitutes rice for Iberian ham, resulting in a variation of zongzi that nevertheless remains just as exquisite as the traditional ones. This dish is one of Dong's innovative masterpieces made using traditional Chinese methods and fusing Chinese and Western ingredients. 

The seemingly all-white concoction can actually be subdivided into three parts according to its ingredients: cheese, chocolate, and powdered sugar. These colors all come in different shades, which create a densely-layered look that exudes perfect harmony.

So subtle are the flavors of this dish, that one can taste all eight of the typical Chinese cooking seasonings, such as mustard and peppercorns, hidden in the chocolate after chewing it. 

The Huitengxile Grassland has dense pastures containing seas of blooming flowers. More importantly, a large number of mushrooms grow here that are difficult to find anywhere else.

After the rainfall, drops of water cover the treasure trove of white mushrooms hiding under the grass of the pasture. When Dong first witnessed these mushrooms, what impressed him most was their strong aroma.

Simmered Cuttlefish Roe with Jiangshui Noodles (noodles in a fermented vegetable juice) was one of Dong's masterpieces when he returned from his journey to Dunhuang. This dish is an integration of braised cuttlefish roe soup, a part of Shandong cuisine, and Dunhuang jiangshui noodles. 

In Wang Zengqi's article, The Salted Eggs in My Hometown, he mentioned that Gaoyou salted eggs were supple and oily. People usually crack the egg on one end and proceed to dig it out of the shell using chopsticks. When the chopsticks pierce through the egg white, the oil oozes out. 

Dong puts the eggs in mung bean rice wrapped with lemon leaves, which will cool you down in summertime and leave you feeling refreshed.

Persimmons are not picked until right before the Spring Festival, at which time they are placed on the windowsill. The persimmons are hardened by the low winter temperatures. 

After the Spring Festival, the frozen persimmons are brought indoors and put in bowls. The juice of these persimmons is sugary-sweet. 

In September 2013, Dong attended a celebration of celebrity chef Alain Ducasse's 30 years as a chef in France. After the event, Dong left Arles and proceeded along the old motley roads of Marseilles to Alain Ducasse's villa in the countryside.

Every morning, he got up early to enjoy the beauty of rural Provence. The picturesque and silent France landscape was covered by a thick layer of white frost. Dong's creativity makes this dish look like the stunning frost-covered French countryside.

This unsurprisingly egg-shaped dessert with an edible "shell" provides an opportunity for the chef to interact with diners. The diners witness the chef approach while holding an egg and an empty plate. When the chef greets them, he or she pretends to accidentally drop the egg on the plate and profusely apologizes for their "mistake". This little trick adds a touch of theater to the dining experience. 

When diners taste it, they will be surprised to find that the egg is in fact made of persimmon pulp. When the season is right, Dong works the widely favored persimmons into egg yolk and powdered sugar into eggshells, which seems simple, but actually requires a high degree of creativity and panache. 

Nespresso Brazilian coffee is ground from pure Arabica coffee beans, which are lightly roasted to give them a sweet and light aroma. 

Dong roasts the pork with a prepared sauce, and then dips it in Nespresso Brazilian coffee to absorb the aroma of the roasted grains, before roasting it once again. Once it is soaked in the Nespresso Brazilian coffee, the roasted pork becomes a mouth-watering entree that no diner can resist.