Food is the best medicine – Financial times
On a bustling Saturday morning in Guangzhou, China, Clifford Herbal Cuisine, an innovative restaurant that combines the ancient principles of traditional Chinese medicine with gastronomic delights.
Lu Xinhua looks like somebody’s aunt. Her short, wavy black hair, freckles and sweater set give her a kindly demeanour. So I did not mind when she took my wrist with three fingers the other day at lunch.
“You have had a cold recently, haven’t you?” she says after a moment. “You tire easily,” she concludes, after asking me to stick out my tongue and pressing her fingers into my other wrist.
It was an unsettling way to start a meal, but that is how many at Clifford Herbal Cuisine begin. The restaurant, which opened two years ago in a hospital in Guangzhou, the southern Chinese city formerly known as Canton, serves a menu designed to adhere to the principles of traditional Chinese medicine.
Diners can opt to consult an on-site doctor of Chinese medicine, as I did, who will suggest certain dishes to help fix whatever ailments they might have. Or they can navigate the menu of more than 100 surprisingly tasty dishes, each labelled with its health benefits, on their own.
