Noodles, boulettes and bol renversé: the Sino-Mauritian table

In Mauritius, Chinese food is part of daily life. Fried noodles, boulettes in their broth and bol renversé belong to everyday cooking, just as much as dholl puri or rougaille. Yet Mauritians of Chinese origin make up around three per cent of the island’s population. Their cooking has taken a place far larger than their numbers, and it is first discovered in one district of the capital.

The Chinese presence in Port Louis goes back a long way. The Kwan Tee Pagoda, in the Les Salines district, was built in 1842 by the Chinese community; it is the oldest pagoda in the Southern Hemisphere and on the African continent, and it is listed as a national heritage site. Painted bright red, set off with yellow and green, it faces the sea with the mountains at its back. In the nineteenth century, indentured labourers from China also passed through the Aapravasi Ghat depot, alongside those from India, the Comoros, Madagascar, Mozambique and South-East Asia.

In the 1940s, many Chinese immigrants arrived in Mauritius, opened businesses and settled around the Royal Road, in the centre of Port Louis. The district became Chinatown, one of the oldest in Africa. Today one strolls among shops and restaurants passed down from generation to generation: biscuit makers, Chinese cakes, baskets of steaming dumplings that draw passers-by right up to the doorstep. The district adjoins the central market and the waterfront, and its walls have filled with street art, from a panda bursting through a wall on Rue Emmanuel Anquetil to the murals of Rue Venpin.

Everyday Sino-Mauritian cooking comes down to a handful of dishes. Noodles first, fried or boiled, found as readily in the small restaurants of Chinatown as at the Sunday stalls of Tamarin Bay. Then boulettes: small steamed dumplings, filled with prawn, lamb, squash, chicken, fish, tofu or squid, served in a hot broth with vegetables and noodles. They are found all over the island, and make a light supper.

Bol renversé, the “upturned bowl”, lives up to its name. It is a layered dish: rice, stir-fried vegetables, meat or seafood, and a fried egg on top. It is assembled in a bowl, then turned out onto the plate at the moment of serving, and the egg ends up at the top of a small dome. The dish appears on the menus of many restaurants on the island.

Restaurant Lai Min, at 58 Royal Road in Port Louis, serves Cantonese and Hakka cooking. Opened in 1946 by Edmond Lai Min, the house passed to his son Laval and then, since 1985, to Jean-Pierre and Jean-Marc Lai Min; it presents itself as the oldest Chinese restaurant on the island. It is open from Tuesday to Sunday, for lunch and dinner, and on Saturday evenings a fixed-price menu comes with music and a dance floor.

On Rue Léoville L’Homme, The City Orient has served Cantonese cuisine since 2004, also known as Yue cuisine, that of Guangdong province, where its chefs come from. Guangdong dishes are recognisable by their tender, slightly sweet taste. Cantonese cooks steam, stir-fry in the wok, pan-fry, braise, deep-fry and double-boil. The dining room has a little over a hundred covers, and the group menus are designed for a table of ten.

The grand hotels have their Chinese restaurants too. At LUX* Belle Mare, Duck Laundry draws on the cuisines of Sichuan, Shanghai and Canton, serves its duck in the manner of Peking duck and makes its dim sum in house every day. At Sofitel Mauritius L’Impérial, in Wolmar, Ming Court offers crab soup, braised abalone and lacquered duck.

Chinese New Year, a public holiday, falls in January or February, as the lunar calendar dictates. Lion dances, firecrackers and lucky red envelopes accompany it across the island, and the largest celebration takes place in Chinatown. In May, the district hosts its annual food and culture festival: two days organised by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Mauritius, when the island’s Chinese cooking can be tasted between performances.

This is perhaps the best moment to understand this table. It shows how a cuisine that came from Canton and the Hakka country has become, over a century and a half, as Mauritian as the rest: eaten standing at the counter or with family around a large table, and shared by all.