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The tasting menu at The Venetian Macau’s Canton restaurant looked enticing. It featured prawn coated with citrus dressing, served with mango salsa and baked cherry tomatoes; baked black cod fillet marinated with honey over a bed of sautéed egg white and crab meat; and winter melon noodles with Alaskan king crab in rice wine and chili consommé. Each dish, elegantly prepared in small portions, tasted remarkably delicious. And to complement the experience, the service was flawless, if not doting.

As the dishes suggested, Chinese cuisine has evolved through the years. The menu, created by Singaporean-born Malaysian Sam Leong, reflects how Chinese food can be as creative as Western cui-sine. As a pioneer of innovative Chinese cooking, he straddles the traditional and the modern, yet still uses ancient food traditions to emphasize aroma, color, texture and flavor. Like the Whampoa Club’s owner and chef Jeremy Leung, Leong injects a higher sense of creativity into modern culinary techniques.

Leong’s creativity depends on the fresh herbs and spices avail-able. He uses varied ingredients like curry, coriander leaves, cin-namon, star anise, bay leaf and rosemary. Says Leong: “Cooking with ingredients is one element but combining flavors is another thing.”

True, Chinese cuisine consists of an amalgam of flavors. It is known worldwide but nobody has really refined it. In 1993, when Leong worked at The Four Seasons Singapore, he saw how guests were shy to take the last piece of a dim sum order. This gave him the idea for creating individual dim sum platters, so patrons wouldn’t feel awkward about taking the last piece.

That was just the begin-ning of a career in culinary innovation. When Leong was invited to dine at Spago, Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant in Beverly Hills, he was en-lightened. The 12-course tasting menu, paired with wines, was an eye-opener. He, like many other Chinese, used to put the entire piece of scallop into his mouth. At the dinner, he saw the other diners cutting it up with their forks and knives, and savoring every bite. The concept of tasting portions occurred to him and since then, he has applied this in his cooking.

Today, as the Director of Kitchens for Tung Lok Restaurants in Singapore, he has created a menu that

marries traditional Chinese cuisine with modern influences, such as adding shredded white truffles to braised shark’s fin with chicken broth.

Leong has revolutionized the art of modern Chinese dining. A re-cipient of numerous accolades, he has cooked for VIP guests like former US presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton. Despite having 26 years of cooking experience behind him, he confesses: “I didn’t really want to be a chef. I wanted to be a policeman. I’d rather study hard and take my Saturday and Sunday off.” Given how busy his schedule is, we were lucky to get the chance to sit down with him during the Wine & Gourmet Asia event in Macau and talk about the evolution of Chinese cuisine.

Do you think Chinese restaurant culture has progressed through the years?

Yes. When My Humble House (a restaurant chain that uses Leong’s recipes) opened in Chengdu six years ago, the waiter used to serve wine with ice. The staff, I believe, are now more well-trained than be-fore. Ladies are offered seats first even when they’re with their bosses. Moreover, lanterns and round tables are no longer used. Chinese res-taurants operate in a more neutral, contemporary style.

Let’s talk about your cooking style. Share with us some of your culinary techniques.

There are many. The inspiration for winter melon noodle soup

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came from eating the Thai dessert Siam Ruby with coconut soup. To two grams of winter melon we add tapioca flour, poach it in hot water, and soak it in ice almost immediately afterwards. Another complicated technique involves preparing crab leg stuffed with shark’s fin. We care-fully crack open the legs, remove the meat, stuff it with shark’s fin and put the meat back in without breaking the joints. It is a complicated process but nobody has done it in a more refined way than this.

What are the current trends in Chinese cooking?Foie gras and salmon are used as main ingredients, while truffles

and caviar are used as garnishing. But 80 per cent of the ingredients are still Chinese. I like using egg white and fish maw to provide tex-tures and bold flavors. I can’t live without chicken stock, soy sauce and oyster sauce.

You mix foreign ingredients with Chinese delicacies, such as braised shark’s fin with Beluga caviar. Don’t you think you’re diluting the uniqueness of Chinese cuisine?

No, I don’t think so. In Hong Kong, every restaurant you go to offers the same thing. But what’s next? That’s why I want to take Chinese cuisine to another level.

Cantonese food is known for including exotic animals. How do you think this culture has affected the people’s diet?

When I was working in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, people ate tiger tail, elephant trunk, wild boar and monkey brain. Like them Cantonese, they believed phalluses would improve their bodies.

Why are there only a few recognized Chinese chefs in the world?

There are many talented Chinese cooks, not chefs. Many experi-enced chefs don’t want to share their recipes as they are afraid that their subordinates will steal them. In my case, it’s different. My father, who as a chef was known as the King of Shark’s Fin 30 years ago, always says: gao dou muo fong, meaning, it is essential to teach chefs because it shows how well you manage your staff. I tell you, there are people ten times better than Sam Leong.

How do you see Chinese food evolve in the next five years?

Dishes will be presented better and served individually.

If there was one thing you wanted to improve in Cantonese cooking, what would it be and why?

I would not create dishes with carved vegetables and parsley. Also, the sheet of paper used to suck the oil from deep-fried dishes – that

should be used only in the kitchen. Everything on the plate should be edible.

Has the use of MSG in modern Chinese cooking re-duced?

If I didn’t put MSG in my dishes, do you think The Humble House would have been successful? The right quantity is needed to enhance the dish. If you use fresh chicken stock or xiang tang in all your dishes, it is costly and time-consuming.

How do you compare yourself with Martin Yan?There is no comparison at all. Martin is a mentor to the indus-

try. Many Chinese chefs have followed in his footsteps to increase awareness of Chinese cuisine and gain international recognition.