Three chefs and a feast

Each dish was paired with a Hennessy cognac－either served at cold or room temperature.

The dinner started with Wang's drunk spot shrimps. The shrimps were marinated in huangjiu (yellow liquor) for 10 minutes with wasabi, sugar and preserved plum to give them a slightly sweet flavor.

"This dish usually doesn't use spot shrimp, but I think this kind of shrimp has a richer flavor, especially when it slides down the throat," says Wang.

His second dish was stewed pork with cherry, a traditional dish in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, where the red color comes from red yeast rice and the pork has to be stewed for 100 minutes to get the flavor into the meat.

Wang says that pairing cognac with Chinese dishes is now widely accepted by Chinese diners.

"And I prefer to use dishes with the lightest or the heaviest flavors to pair with cognac."

For Chen Xiaodong, traditional Cantonese dishes are the tastiest ones, and he just tweaks them to give a modern presentation.