For one evening at Grand Majestic Sichuan, the journey from sea to table was measured not only in flavor, but in kilometers.
Chef Theign Phan and her team at the Alexandra House restaurant joined forces with Aberdeen-based Peter Seafood on October 15 for A Celebration of Local Catch, a one-night menu pairing seafood from Hong Kong and coastal China with the fermented chilies, peppercorns and pickled flavors of Sichuan cooking.
The collaboration brought together Grand Majestic Sichuan’s flame-led approach with Peter Seafood’s sourcing and handling expertise. Founded by Peter Kam in 2012, the supplier began as a two-person operation and has since expanded into seafood import, export, processing, wholesale and retail, serving restaurants, hotels and clubs while also promoting sustainable seafood sourcing.
The nine-course dinner journey through seafood sourced from nearby Hong Kong waters to Dalian, almost 2,000 kilometers away — gives provenance an unusually visible place at the table.
Starting close to home, the meal opened with chilled cuttlefish noodles made with catch from Hong Kong waters, dressed with red and orange Sichuan fermented chilies, aromatic soy and chili oil.
From there, the menu began moving outward. Ruby snapper from Taishan, around 145 kilometers from Hong Kong, was prepared in a fish-fragrant style with ginger, garlic and Sichuan chilies, drawing on the sweet, sour and aromatic character of yu xiang seasoning.
Bombay duck from the southern Guangdong coast, about 150 kilometers away, was fried wrapped in rice paper and served with XO sauce, while conch sourced from the Guangdong-Fujian coastline was sliced and paired with green chilies and Sichuan peppercorn.
Kuruma prawns brought the menu back close to Hong Kong waters. Their natural sweetness was set against Sichuan chili bean paste, fermented glutinous rice wine, garlic and ginger — a treatment that placed the natural sweetness of the prawn against deeper fermented flavors.
One of the longer journeys belonged to yellow croaker from Fujian, around 873 kilometers from Hong Kong. It was served with pickled mustard greens, green cold-skin noodles and yellow lantern chili paste, bringing acidity and heat into one of the evening’s more layered fish courses.
Then came the evening’s only bird — with a rather mischievous reason for being there.
Phan explained that while visiting fish markets to source seafood, she had occasionally found herself being chased by birds, which would sometimes make off with the catch. Including pigeon on the menu, she joked, was therefore a small act of culinary revenge.
The joke materialized in the final savory course: abalone from Dalian, the farthest-traveled seafood of the evening at roughly 1,984 kilometers from Hong Kong, paired with pigeon sourced much closer to the city, wild mushrooms and baked rice. It was an unexpectedly playful end to a menu otherwise structured around geography and provenance.
Dessert kept the Sichuan theme intact with Chilli and Chocolate: chocolate ganache seasoned with Sichuan chili and peppercorn, accompanied by a glutinous rice dumpling and black cane sugar syrup.
Rather than treating seafood simply as a luxury ingredient, the dinner used distance and origin as part of the narrative. Cuttlefish and prawns came from Hong Kong; ruby snapper from Taishan; Bombay duck from southern Guangdong; conch from the Guangdong-Fujian coastline; yellow croaker from Fujian; and abalone from Dalian.
That sourcing story also reflects Peter Seafood’s evolution from its Aberdeen roots into a supplier working across local and international seafood markets. Its business now covers live, chilled and frozen seafood for both hospitality and retail customers.
Although the collaboration was designed as a one-night event, it may leave a longer imprint on Grand Majestic Sichuan. Three to four dishes developed for the dinner are expected to be added to the restaurant’s regular menu, allowing parts of the experiment to continue beyond the special showcase.
marco.lam@singtaonewscorp.com
