Organic food restaurants are springing up in urban areas, as city dwellers seek alternatives to tasteless greenhouse vegetables and factory-produced poultry. Tutufang, a chain restaurant serving organic dishes with ingredients from Chenzhou City in Central China's Hunan Province, recently opened its fourth restaurant in Shenzhen near the Donghai Garden housing estate in Futian District.

"Almost all the meat and vegetables at Tutufang restaurants come from a pollution-free farm at an altitude of 1,400 meters in Chenzhou," said Deng Yingwu, manager of the Donghai restaurant.

He says the farm, which was featured on CCTV, uses no pesticides or chemical fertilizers. The restaurant buys processed dry vegetables, pickles and sauces from Hunan farmers. Fish is imported from Dongjiang Reservoir in Chenzhou. The restaurant has stopped using poultry from Hunan because of the recent outbreak of bird flu there.

Tutufang is one of the few organic food restaurants in Shenzhen that owns refrigerator trucks. The two trucks drive about five hours each night transporting fresh food from Chenzhou to the four chain restaurants by early morning.

As the Donghai restaurant's chef is from Chenzhou, dishes are mostly Chenzhou style, milder than other varieties of Hunan food.

Specialties include sour hot taro and beef and snail, as well as preserved taro stem and duck. My favorite is the taro stem and duck. The crispy and slightly sour preserved taro stem offsets the greasiness of the duck. According to Deng, Japan imports taro from Chenzhou because of its high quality. Beef and snail sounded like a strange mixture, but it also turned out to be delicious.

Tutufang creates a country dining atmosphere with its wooden chairs and tables similar to those in farmers' homes in Hunan Province. Although the restaurant is in an expensive neighborhood, Tutufeng's prices are reasonable. Dinner for one costs about 20 yuan (US$2.47). Tutufang is offering a 20 percent discount through Dec. 1.

Editor: Donald