Gudao Fresh Fish Soup 孤岛鲜鱼汤

Gudao Fresh Fish Soup (孤岛鲜鱼汤) is a fish soup named after Gudao (孤岛), a town of Hekou District (河口区) in the northeast of Dongying (东营), Shandong. Chinese Wikipedia lists it among the typical dishes of Dongying, a cuisine it describes as shaped by both the Yellow River and the Bohai Sea.

Flavour and texture

Gudao Fresh Fish Soup is known for a thick, white broth and fresh, tender fish. Dongying Net (东营网) notes that the cooking calls for few seasonings and that the finished soup is milky white and savoury.

Where it comes from

In 2019 Dongying Net put the number of places serving the soup in Gudao at no fewer than several hundred. A local legend tells of an old man surnamed Wang who, in the Tang dynasty, made fish soup to help Xue Rengui (薛仁贵); from then on, the story goes, the soup spread across the Yellow River mouth (黄河口) area.

How it is eaten

Dongying Net pairs a bowl at one of the fish-soup restaurants with a visit to the Yellow River estuary. A Qilu Net (齐鲁网) report carried by Dazhong Net (大众网) listed Gudao Fresh Fish Soup, with Lijin (利津) Yanwo (盐窝) whole-lamb soup and farmhouse stewed chicken and fish, among the dishes holiday visitors ate in Dongying over the 2016 Spring Festival.