The celebrity story of gourmet Chen Xiaoqing.

The celebrity story of gourmet Chen Xiaoqing.

On April 18, after the second season premiere of "China on the Tip of the Tongue", Chen Xiaoqing, the general director, greeted waves of media in the CCTV Record Channel office. He was a little depressed and his face was full of fatigue.

Only when he talked about eating did his dark face suddenly start to glow.

Saojiezui

There are many legends in Chen Xiaoqing. For example, he has a ready-made food map of Beijing in his mind. He couldn't find a place to eat within the Sixth Ring Road in Beijing, so he sent him the address. In less than 5 minutes, a restaurant recommendation message came to you.

According to textual research, these legends are indeed somewhat reliable. One day, Zhang Lixian, editor-in-chief of Reading Library, visited Cheng Nan. When it was time for dinner, he called Chen Xiaoqing to ask what to eat. Just hang up the phone, the text message came: Xiaoxiang Pavilion, with cauldron cauliflower, old bacon, pickled fish head, pickled radish, blood duck, water celery and red cabbage moss. ...

Another time, another good friend of Chen Xiaoqing, Wang Xiaoshan, invited his college classmates to dinner and asked him to recommend a restaurant. Five minutes later, they received a text message and arrived at the designated restaurant. The food was already served. It turned out that Chen Xiaoqing had "ordered food for him by remote control of the restaurant by telephone", but "unfortunately, he didn't know the name of the food after eating it for a long time".

None of this was done in one day. When Chen Xiaoqing had nothing to do, he started a "carpet search" on the streets of Beijing. Anyone who seems a little interested will go in and try it. At most, his mobile phone has stored more than 700 pieces of restaurant information, including name, address, route, telephone number, main course, which dishes need special reminder and which waiters are cute. This was inspired by Shen, the former manager of Sanlian Bookstore. Shen Lao once had a "business link", which was full of restaurant memos. It is Chen Xiaoqing's ideal to be able to eat as carefully as Shen Lao and have the same sense of accomplishment.

Chen Xiaoqing didn't even miss the corner. Zhang Lixian once went to Chen Xiaoqing to organize a dinner party. According to his short message, it was found in a neighborhood near lianhua bridge. It's an ordinary apartment, which was purchased by Chizhou Liaison Office in Beijing, Anhui Province. It is not open to the public. If you want to eat, you need to make an appointment in advance and report the number of people. People transport ingredients from the local area. According to the statistics of Chen Xiaoqing, this community alone hides more than 20 authentic local flavors. Because of this, Chen Xiaoqing's colleagues nicknamed him "the scavenger".

The audience can see so many mouth-watering foods on the tip of the tongue, which is inseparable from Chen Xiaoqing's galloping steps on the road of eating goods. Most of these foods are carefully selected by him with his taste buds.

For example, in the first episode of Footsteps, there are three kinds of Taizhou cuisine: watching the tide, jumping fish and eating cakes. This originated from an interesting trip taken by his foodie friend Chen Li. "Most of the things I eat have strange names, but they taste great." Years later, Chen Xiaoqing still remembers, "Like an omelet cake, every bite tastes different. It feels like Forrest Gump's chocolate. You never know what you're gonna get next. It may be eggs, bean sprouts, dried incense, or watching the tide ... wonderful. "

Put aside all foreplay that has nothing to do with food.

Chen Xiaoqing's tongue is not satisfied with China. In Japan, their family of four got off the tram twice just to have an authentic Japanese Lamian Noodles. Lamian Noodles's shop is called Inoue, which is an open-air noodle restaurant facing the street. Two meters away is the driveway, and there is a long queue here. On the left side of the noodle pot are two tables as narrow as benches. The customer stood there eating noodles wholeheartedly, and all the compliments could only be read from the expressive face.

Chen Xiaoqing likes places like this. It puts aside all foreplay that has nothing to do with food, such as environment, dialogue and face, and goes straight to the climax of food. For him, eating can never be a private room in the hall, a restaurant on the side of the road, an outdoor room, or sitting down while standing.

He used to go to five-star hotels in Beijing to drink mutton soup from his hometown, because he knew that the boss specially invited the chef from Xiaoxian County. Don't look at the menu every time you go, just order a bowl of mutton soup and two crispy buns? The waiter froze there, trying to recommend other dishes-so many times, thin face, embarrassed to go again.

He still prefers to go to small restaurants, like the sharp, turbid and pleasant taste of rivers and lakes, and like the comfortable and casual atmosphere there.

However, Chen Xiaoqing was somewhat vain in the initial stage of eating goods. His deep concern for food began at the Chinese Food Festival in 1987. This is his first documentary about food. He took photos and ate many "high-end" dishes that he had never seen before. That time, he ate shark fin for the first time. When the shark fin was served, the lighting engineer said, "I don't eat vermicelli." Everyone laughed at him, and so did Chen Xiaoqing.

At that time, he felt that what he couldn't afford or eat was the best.

My brother, a chef in a high-end restaurant, advised him not to eat such bluff things as abalone wings: "A chef, like me, has been exposed to these things countless times in his life. How can he do it well without practicing a few times? " Don't trust those high-end dishes. I suggest you eat more pork and beef. We don't deal with each other everyday. "After listening to my brother's analysis, Chen Xiaoqing became more confident.

Quanzhou radish rice appeared on tip of tongue 2. Many audiences in Quanzhou are not convinced. There are so many famous foods in Quanzhou, why do you want to make a bowl of radish rice? In fact, the old man gave Chen Xiaoqing more than ten kinds of delicious food, including pepper, abalone, tiger shrimp and so on, which had been preserved for ten years. But only when he got radish rice, grandpa was very happy to see Chen Xiaoqing. "The more common people's food, the closer it is to the true meaning of food."

This is also the overall value set by Chen Xiaoqing for the director of "Diversity": don't shoot famous dishes, don't shoot big dishes, only shoot delicious food cooked by my mother when I was a child. "We never say that China's food on the tip of the tongue is the best. We choose what most ordinary people can eat and afford every day. "

The fireworks on earth are the most gratifying.

During the filming of "Tip of the Tongue 2" for more than a year, no new restaurants were developed in Chen Xiaoqing. "Too busy, have lunch every day." However, he still goes to the cold noodle shop in Fu You Street once a week. "It will be quick every time, and it will be finished in 20 minutes. The taste doesn't matter anymore, I eat memories. " Sometimes, when his son Chen Le sees that he is in a bad mood, he will suggest, "Dad, shall we go to eat cold noodles today?"

This is Chen Xiaoqing's noodle restaurant, which has been eaten for 32 years. It bears his life experience and memory moments after he arrived in Beijing. For him, this restaurant is not a simple restaurant. "The best food is food that can soothe your soul."

Behind an unforgettable food, there may be a person with a past. In fact, it doesn't matter when, where, what and how Chen Xiaoqing eats. The most important thing for him is who to eat with. He has always been a regular dinner for the elderly, and several friends get together irregularly, just chatting or saying nothing. He used to attend food-centered dinners or, to be precise, food tasting parties. But he never wrote about eating in this place once, and he didn't like it. Later, this kind of party can be cancelled.

What is rare is purity and warmth. In his food articles, the beauty of food is always inseparable from the warmth of people's hearts, full of fireworks: an old couple who came to Beijing to open a restaurant for their son, a small shopkeeper who swore at traditional practices, and a restaurant that only opened for half a day to take care of their children's schooling. ...

He wrote to take his son back to his hometown for breakfast and couldn't wait to get up and drink soup. The so-called soup is actually hung on the chicken skeleton, which is civilian food. It is stewed slowly with a small fire and roasted with Chili when it is out of the pot. He asked for soup for his son and went out to help him find something else to eat along the way. Sugar cakes, sesame cakes, food boxes ... He sent meals back again and again, and his son was sweating and enjoying them contentedly. This warm sense of accomplishment seems to have brought him back to an early morning in his childhood. At that time, my father brought him here for the first time. The taste memory of childhood comes back instantly.

Chen Xiaoqing believes that everyone's stomach actually has a door, and the key is the food password given to you by your parents and elders in childhood. No matter where you drift, the door may have been broken, but the password lock on the door is still closed, waiting for your childhood taste imagination to wake up.

The theme of "The Tip of the Tongue" series has always been to explore the relationship between people and food. "Previous food documentaries were all about' cooking, washing hands and making soup for me on the third day', and what we want to emphasize is' I decided that my husband's sister, not my mother-in-law, should smell like Fiat'."

The subtlety behind the food was deliberately presented by the director group. However, the audience did not fully buy it. This episode of "Dark Days" also suffered the most violent spit. In the film, a working family in Henan wants to send their daughter to Shanghai to learn piano. The two places have been separated for five years, and my father works in his hometown to support the living expenses of the mother and daughter in Shanghai. In the past five years, my father has never been to Shanghai, my grandmother is critically ill, and my children have never been home to visit. Such a story was refuted by the audience as lacking humanity, and "the food program became a bitter drama".

Chen Xiaoqing said it was part of reality. "In the rapidly changing China, this is helpless. I don't want to judge this matter, just put it forward. " . He hopes to see the living environment and attitude of China people through food. "If a food lover is insensitive and can't understand this, it's useless."

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