A beautiful restaurant creates a lakeside environment indoors, drawing fans of Hunan cuisine to Beijing's north suburbs for platters of softshell turtle and other delicacies, Mike Peters discovers.

=This may not be the place to eat if you get seasick easily, my friend jokes as we cross a little bridge to get to our "waterfront" table.

We are actually indoors, not dining at lakeside, but the Xiaoxiang Jiayu Cun restaurant takes a lot of trouble to make you think you are very close to nature.

Inside a charming replica of a small covered Chinese boat, our dinner table is mounted and discreet pumps create the sound of gently flowing water to complete the illusion that we might be on Dongting, the most famous lake in Hunan province.

The illusion is enhanced by the food itself: The menu is organized around fresh ingredients from the area - notably Chinese softshell turtles, which are scrabbling around in a pen near the dining room. In big aquariums nearby, there are lake fish rather bigger than the dinner plates they will be heading for in short order.

Such creatures are central to the cuisine itself. Hunan is perched on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and its rivers, lakes and mountain valleys provide an abundance of delicacies, including fish, shrimp, crab and the famous turtles. Hunan cuisine, we're told, demands skillful use of a kitchen knife, a delicious taste and a beautiful shape. Known for sour and spicy dishes, Hunan chefs use a wide variety of cooking techniques to create dishes that boast fresh aroma, some greasiness, deep color, and the prominence of the main flavor in each dish.

In a signature soup here, for example, the turtle dominates though much of it is submerged in a milky broth it shares with spring onions and red dates, morsels long-treasured in China for good health. I find the meaty legs to be delicious, but struggle a bit with the collagen tissue around the ribs that's eagerly consumed by Chinese diners around me for its long-treasured reputation for enhancing the skin.

Our meal had started with a delicate plate of cold pork knuckle. Next came a beautiful dish of fried eggplant, spiced with chilies and slathered with a shimmering red sweet-and-sour sauce. Another plate featured what seemed to us like a Hunan taco: a savory mound of stir-fried pork, onion, garlic and herbs piled on a thick, round cracker.

There is a predictably nice tea selection as well as baijiu, the traditional Chinese firewater distilled from sorghum, but we opted for a dry French cabernet from the expansive winecellar shared with the restaurant's neighbor, the Chicago-style eatery called Windy City Ballroom.

The two sister restaurants are part of a lovely resort complex: Two hotels, a small lake alive with carp, and a lotus pond in the center - now stripped bare of foliage for the winter - that offers a pleasant spot for one of Windy City chef Dustin Merritt's hip cocktails before dinner when the weather is nice. In fact, English is thin on the ground at the Hunan restaurant, so if you don't have a Mandarin speaker in your party, it's easier to start with a drink at Windy City and let the staff there steer you over to the Chinese side.

The resort is a fair distance from our home - expats may be more familiar with the Mongolian restaurant 99 Yurts, an unrelated eatery that's right next door. After our pleasant, leisurely Hunan feast, it was great to know that the hotel rooms start at 300 yuan ($47) a night to pricier suites in a courtyard-style wing. That made it easy to slide over to our snug siheyuan (courtyard house) replica for a good night's sleep and an easy commute to work the next morning.

Contact the writer at michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 10/30/2015 page15)