I became a cook apprentice at the age of 16, almost 25 years ago. I started to have my own understandings of cooking very early on, but such understandings had to be consistently reshaped, reforged, and refined through years of practice, before finally evolving into my own culinary style.
I started my career as a professional chef in some high-end hotels in Chengdu. In hotel restaurants, traditional Sichuan dishes were the dominating items on the menu. However, outside the hotels, there were way more innovative and creative Sichuan dishes.