How do Zhanjiang flavours at The House of Dynasties diverge from typical Cantonese?

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Zhanjiang flavours at The House of Dynasties diverge from typical Cantonese mainly through seasoning choices and texture differences rather than the overall Cantonese “look” of the dishes
At The House of Dynasties, Chef Justin Tan brings Zhanjiang influences from Guangdong, and the meal is often familiar to Malaysians in broad outline but diverges in specific moments. The clearest example is an Anpu-style poached chicken rice that is described as extraordinarily pure—clean, unadulterated chicken—yet missing familiar scallion and ginger, while the chicken texture is denser and firmer than what many diners here expect. Other dishes also shift away from what diners may associate with Cantonese seasoning, including lobster cooked under fermented black beans and garlic and wok-fried beef seasoned with in-house oyster brine instead of soy sauce.
The poached chicken rice omits scallion and ginger and changes the chicken texture
The Anpu-style poached chicken rice at The House of Dynasties looks similar to the white cut chicken commonly encountered in Malaysia, but it diverges in two concrete ways. The flavour is described as “extraordinarily pure,” with no familiar presence of scallion and ginger, and the chicken itself is denser and firmer rather than the slippery, supple texture many are used to. Even with the denser bite, the skin is noted for a smooth quality.
The Zhanjiang fried lobster uses fermented black beans and garlic
For Zhanjiang-style fried lobster, the dish arrives buried under fermented black beans and garlic. The lobster meat is described as startlingly firm and deeply savoury, with a texture and intensity that stand out from the reviewer’s expectations of familiar Cantonese impressions. The overall effect is a flavour profile built around fermented aromatics rather than the more familiar ingredient framing the reviewer expected.
Wok-fried beef swaps soy sauce for in-house oyster brine
For wok-fried beef slices, Chef Tan explains that instead of soy sauce, oyster brine is used. The oyster brine is made in-house and reduced down to oyster sauce in one step short of full reduction, producing a pure, savoury, briny flavour that highlights Zhanjiang’s famous oysters. This explicit substitution places the beef seasoning closer to oyster-driven brininess than a soy-led profile.
Chef Tan’s Zhanjiang identity shapes the “Cantonese” feel into a distinct regional variant
Chef Justin Tan is from Zhanjiang, a coastal city in Guangdong, and his cooking is presented as distinct even within Cantonese cooking. Within that framework, the meal’s most discussed deviations are not changes in dish category but differences in seasoning building blocks—scallion/ginger absence in poached chicken, fermented black beans and garlic under lobster, and oyster brine instead of soy sauce for beef—paired with firmer, denser textures. Even the husband-and-wife offal pieces are described as tingly and spicy, adding to the sense of a regional variant rather than a straightforward Cantonese match.

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How do Zhanjiang flavours at The House of Dynasties diverge from typical Cantonese?

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