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Kai Wang and her friends like to sniff out the latest regional Chinese restaurants: a tiny cafe in east London specialising in food from China's north-east, or one near London Bridge serving numbing and hot crayfish. Kai, 26, is a media professional who came to the UK from Beijing in 2008, first to study and then to work. "When I arrived in London I thought I was really going to miss Beijing food. I love traditional Beijing cuisine, but also the spicy regional cuisines that have become popular in recent years: Sichuan, Hunan and Hubei. When I came to the UK, the Chinese food here all seemed to be so sweet and westernised, with a focus on the Cantonese style, which is too light and delicate for Beijing tastes. But more and more authentic Chinese regional restaurants have opened in the past few years, not just in Chinatown but all over the city."
王凯（音译）和她的朋友们乐于发觉最新的中国地方菜餐馆：一家位于伦敦东部专营中国西北菜的小餐馆，或是一家位于伦敦桥旁的餐馆提供「麻辣小龙虾」。凯（音译）是一位2008年从北京前往英国的专业媒体人，先求学后就业。“当我到达伦敦的时候，我想我开始切实的想念北京的食物。我爱老北京的传统烹饪，同时麻辣口味地区的菜肴在近年也开始流行起来：四川，湖南和湖北。我来英国时，这里的中国菜看来都是过甜和过于西化的，集中于粤式，相较于北京（菜肴）的口感太过清淡。但是近几年越来越多正宗的中国地方菜餐馆开业，不仅限于中国城，遍及城市。
It is people like Kai who have been one of the driving forces in a revolution in Chinese cooking in London and Manchester, and increasingly all over the UK. Unlike the older generation of Cantonese immigrants who arrived decades ago, bringing with them Hong Kong flavours adapted to western tastes, Kai and her contemporaries want to eat bolder, spicier food, and the trendy dishes that remind them of home. "So many westerners order dishes such as sweet-and-sour pork, char siu buns and stir-fried rice noodles with beef, which I really don't like," she says.
正是像凯（音译）这样的人们驱使着伦敦和曼彻斯特地区的中餐烹饪进行变革，而且逐渐遍及整个英国。不同于数十年前抵达的老一辈广东移民，所带来的适应西式口感的港式风味，凯（音译）和她的同辈想要更猛，更辣的菜式，这些时髦的菜肴能让他们想起故乡。“如此多的西方人点例如「糖醋里脊」、「叉烧包」、「炒饭」和「牛肉面」等菜肴，我都不甚喜欢。”她说。
In the mid-1990s, a restaurant called Baguo Buyi opened in the Sichuanese capital, Chengdu, giving a glamorous new spin to Sichuan folk cooking and setting off a nationwide craze for Sichuanese flavours that is only now beginning to cool. Since then, Hunanese food and the hearty cooking of the north-eastern or Dongbei region have also enjoyed their time in the limelight of Chinese culinary fashion. More recent Chinese arrivals to the UK, who include not only students but also businesspeople and tourists, are just as likely to come from Fujian, Shanghai or Liaoning as the Cantonese south of China, which means that Chinese restaurateurs no longer need to adapt their tastes to an old stereotype of Anglo-Cantonese food.
在上世纪90年代中期，一家名为『巴国布衣（Baguo Buyi，音译）』的餐馆于四川省省会成都开业，给予了民间川菜烹饪一个富有魅力的疾驰（式发展），并引爆了全国范围内对川式口味的狂热，而今已经成为了一种时尚。自此以后，湖南菜、丰盛的西北或东北菜也开始享受起了其在中国烹饪风尚中引人注目的时代。近来来到英国的中国人，不仅仅包括留学生，也包括商人和游客，（这些）来自福建、上海或者辽宁的中国人，就像来自中国南方的广东人一样。这意味着中餐馆不再需要调试其口味以适应那些老古板一般的英-粤式菜肴。
Many establishments, including Liao Wei Feng in Bethnal Green and Local Friends in Golders Green, have menus divided into two sections. They have one list of the usual Anglo-Canto suspects, including lemon chicken and crispy duck, and another offering some of the most authentic Hunanese food available in the capital, with dishes such as "stir-fried fragrant and hot fish" and "steamed belly pork, Chairman Mao-style".
许多餐馆，包括【贝思纳尔格林（Bethnal Green）】的『辽味风（Liao Wei Feng，音译）』和【戈尔德斯格林（Golders Green）】的『当地友人（Local Friends）』，有两份菜单。其中一份列有惯常的英-粤菜式菜肴，包括「柠檬鸡」和「香酥鸭」，另一份提供了在首都（伦敦）可以获得的地道湖南菜，如“「炒香辣鱼」”和“「毛氏红烧肉」”。
North-eastern and Hunanese cuisines are not the only ones making gradual inroads into British restaurant culture. Large numbers of Fujianese immigrants have joined the catering trade, although they are often inconspicuous in the kitchens of Cantonese restaurants. Fujian province lies on the south-eastern Chinese coast, and is known for its delicate soups, appetising street snacks and gentle way with oysters and other seafood. A handful of Fujianese cafes have come and gone in London: only one remains, Fuzhou in Gerrard Street, which is the place to go for gorgeous fishballs stuffed with minced pork and cabbage-and-clam soup with slippery rice pasta.
西北和湖南菜肴不是唯一入侵英国餐饮文化的。大量的福建移民开始加入餐饮行业，尽管他们在粤式餐馆的厨房并不常显眼。福建省位于中国东南海岸线上，少量的福建餐馆在英国来来往往：只有一家留存下来，【杰拉德大街（Gerrard Street）】的『福州（Fuzhou）』，那是追寻——填满猪肉末的极品鱼丸和配以卷心菜蛤蜊汤的爽滑米粉——的地方。
Shanghainese food has traditionally been hard to find in Britain, although the city lies in one of China's richest gastronomic regions. The city itself is best known for the xiao long bao "soup dumpling" and for its sweet, soy-dark braises, but the wider region is the source of exquisite river delicacies such as crab, eel and shrimp, and famous dishes including beggar's chicken and dongpo pork. For a glimpse of Shanghainese cuisine, seek out the elegant dishes created by Shanghainese consultant chef Zhang Chichang at the Bright Courtyard Club in Baker Street, or the modest, homestyle stir-fries such as green soya beans with pork and pickled greens at Red Sun in New Quebec Street.
传统上沪菜在英国很难被发现，尽管这座城市位于中国最富美食烹饪的地区之一。这座城市最富盛名的莫过于小笼包“汤包”和其甜口、酱焖（菜式），更广泛源于其精致的河鲜如螃蟹、鳗鱼和虾。知名菜式包括「叫花鸡」和「东坡肉」。想一睹上海菜的佳肴。去找【贝克大街（Baker Street）】的『光明庭俱乐部（Bright Courtyard Club，音译）』的沪菜顾问张驰昌（音译）大厨亲手烹制的优雅菜肴，或者位于【新魁北克大街（New Quebec Street）】的『红日（Red Sun）』那最现代的、家常炒菜如「绿豆猪肉」和「腌制蔬菜」。
Sichuan and Hunan are China's best-known spice regions, but chillies are also adored in Guizhou province. Maotai Kitchen in Soho, named after the famous local liquor, offers Guizhou food. The jovial chef, Zhu Shixiu, grew up in the beautiful hills near the Guizhou-Hunan border, and, after years working in Cantonese restaurants, has been given free rein with the menu. His wife makes the "villagers' pickled Chinese cabbage", a delicious salad laced with coriander, fermented black beans and chilli. Many of his rustic dishes share the sour-hot characteristic of Hunan cooking, but the intriguing lemongrass note in some of them comes from litsea oil (mu jiang you), a Chinese medicine used as a condiment in Guizhou and a few other regions. Maotai Kitchen is part of the same group as Leong's Legends, which serves Taiwanese specialities.
四川和湖南是中国最负盛名的香料产区，但贵州省同样嗜辣。【索霍区（Soho）】的『茅台灶（Maotai Kitchen）』，以当地名酒为店名，供应贵州菜肴。快乐的主厨，朱石秀（音译），成长于湘黔交界的小山中，而且，在粤式餐馆工作数年后，被给予了制定菜单的自由。他的妻子制作的“乡村腌白菜”，是一道点缀香菜、豆豉和辣椒的美味沙拉。他制作的许多乡村菜肴里包含了湖南菜式烹饪的酸辣特色，但其中一些菜色的迷人的柠檬草香来自于木姜油（litsea oil ，mu jiang you)，一味在贵州和一些其他地区被当做调味品的中草药。『茅台灶（Maotai Kitchen）』是『梁山好汉（Leong's Legends）』集团的一员，这是一家供应台湾菜肴的集团。
While there has been a flowering of regional cuisines in London, only Sichuanese cuisine has really broken out of the capital and begun its long march all over the country – a sign, perhaps, of its decade-long status as China's trendiest style of cooking. Red N Hot has branches in Manchester and Birmingham, while Red Chilli has expanded from its original Manchester HQ into Leeds and York: the spicy menu charmingly promises to look after "your pocket, stomach and soul". And in Oxford, My Sichuan has taken over the old school house at Gloucester Green, where chef Zhou Jun from Chengdu presides over a kitchen offering all the classic Sichuanese specialities.
作为在伦敦开花的一种地方菜色，或许，只有四川菜已经冲出省府并开始了全国的长征——引领数十年中国烹饪风尚的地位的一个标志。『红和辣（Red N Hot）』已经在曼彻斯特和伯明翰开设了分店，同时『红辣椒（Red Chilli）』已经从原本的曼彻斯特总部扩张至利兹市和纽约市：辣口菜单诱人地保证着照顾“你的口袋，胃和灵魂”。在牛津，『我的四川（My Sichuan）』已经接管了【格洛斯特格林（Gloucester Green）】的旧校舍，来自成都的大厨周军（音译）主持着一间提供全套传统川菜的厨房。
As China's changing culinary fashions continue to cause ripples in the restaurant scene in London, the range of regional flavours is only likely to increase and spread across the country. In the meantime, Sichuanese cuisine has already radically changed the face of Chinese food in many parts of Britain. No one, it seems, need go for long without dry-fried beans or a bowlful of sliced sea bass in a sea of sizzling chilli oil.
中国变化中的烹饪风尚波及伦敦的餐饮业，地域口味的范围已经增加并席卷全国。在此期间，川式烹饪已经从根本上改变了英国许多部分中餐的面貌。没人能够长期离得开干炸黄豆或一碗热滋滋的辣椒油中的海鲈鱼片。
