After teaming up with Regent Taipei earlier this year to bring Taiwanese beef noodles to its inflight menu served on the flights from Taipei to Tokyo (Taoyuan to Narita, and Songshan to Haneda), All Nippon Airways (ANA) continues the collaboration and launches the “classic imperial feast” designed and created by the Silks Palace, located inside the National Palace Museum park area, and owned and managed by FIH Regent Group. 
The menu is best described as a Chinese degustation experience, with dishes inspired by the various artefacts showcased in the museum. Two of the examples are “meat-shaped stone” and “jadeite cabbage”. The former is a "stone" sculpted out of a piece of Dongpao pork – a tender, flavorful ham hock marinated and braised with a specially blended soysauce. The latter involves an even more complicated process to make: the baby cabbage is first boiled in a ham and chicken broth, and then right after it is cooked, the chef sets and sculpts it into the desired shape, before putting on the scallop sauce and adding tiny sakura shrimp to represent the katydid and locust featured on the "jade cabbage" piece in the exhibition.
Other dishes on the menu include tender green asparagus shoots with salted eggs; peppered long green beans; fresh abalone with five-spice sauce; fresh scallops with scallions; egg white fried rice; kai-lan with five vegetables; and sweet crystal zongzi (rice dumplings) with red beans and mango pudding for dessert. They all require delicate handiwork and much thought has been put into harmonising the flavours of the various ingredients.
The Regent Championship Beef Noodle Soup served in the previous inflight menu will be made available at the ANA Suite Lounge at the Haneda airport from June 24 to July 31 for all first class passengers and Diamond Card members to enjoy. To ensure that the dish will be authentically made, the airline sent two executive Japanese chefs to Regent Taipei in April to learn and prepare the beef noodle soups, from how to choose the ingredients to the final garnishing.
Visit ana.co.jp and regenthotels.com
Reggie Ho
