What it is
Jade belt fish rolls (玉帶魚捲) are a handmade dish from the repertoire of Tainan's old Taiwanese banquet restaurants. Slices of fresh fish are wrapped around a filling of fish paste. 玉帶 means 'jade belt'.
Where it came from
The writer Hsieh Shih-yuan (謝仕淵) traces the core menu of Tainan's old banquet restaurants to two strands, wine-house cooking (酒家菜) and Fuzhou cuisine. He also sees the influence of one chef, Master Yi-chuan (一川師) of the old Bao Mei Lou (寶美樓), on the cooks who built them.
At Hsin Hsin (欣欣餐廳), two quiet decades had shrunk the menu to a few set banquet tables. Some five or six years before Hsieh wrote, with cultural tourism growing in Tainan, founder chef A-Tu decided to bring the old dishes back. Jade belt fish rolls returned to the menu along with Nanjing chicken (南靖雞) and sand-pot duck.
How it is made
Fresh sea bass is cut into slices, and each slice is rolled around some fish paste. The rolls are then either steamed with egg or simmered in soup. The work is done by hand.
How to eat it
It is one course of a shared, banquet-style meal at a round table, alongside dishes such as fried pork liver and five-willow fish. Old-style restaurants with short menus may need some dishes ordered ahead, so ask when booking.
Around Taiwan
- Tainan
- Hsin Hsin (欣欣餐廳) on Minzu Road serves it as 芙蓉玉帶魚捲, one of the old dishes its founder chef returned to the menu.
