A fine feast

"Ingredients are the most important elements of cooking," says Yang. "For the best ingredients, we don't need to over cook them, just let them shine."

For instance, on the menu is a snack of garden tomato, gazpacho and tomato sherbet that is a result of Yang's exploration of the fruit-he even uses a sugar refractometer to test when is the best time to eat the tomato.

Yang spends 50 percent of his time searching for the best ingredients in China, and he aims to catalog all of the best places to find each vegetable.

"I found good Chinese yams in a small village in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, several years ago, but shipping them from the village was difficult back then," says Yang, who has since managed to stock them in his restaurant.

"The Chinese yam was sold abroad the fourth year after I found it. It was fun and I enjoy exploring a lot," Yang says.

From the tricholoma gambosa that grows in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region to the sweetest golden-silk jujube from Shandong province, Yang has written down around 50 ingredients that he believes deliver the best flavor.

"Of all 5,000 ingredients, there are about 700 that can be made into vegetarian food, so there is still a long way for me to go," Yang says.