If and when Donald Trump touches down in Beijing this week for his long-anticipated state visit, the chefs who will feed him and his entourage – probably at least once in the Great Hall of the People – will already have run the scenarios for his meals.

The last time he came, in 2017, the state banquet menu reportedly included Kung Pao chicken, coconut chicken soup, tomato beef and poached star grouper. It was a diplomatic tightrope walk: how do you honour a guest whose culinary preferences, according to his own campaign managers, run to two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish and a chocolate milkshake per meal, washed down with Diet Cokes?

For a man of famously monochromatic tastes, the imagination required to conjure up a suitable state banquet is not exactly expansive. But if the president were willing to eat beyond the tyranny of well-done steak and ketchup, what might greet him on the plate?

Chef Shi Jun has a diplomatic answer ready. The Hangzhou native, a master of Huaiyang cuisine with more than three decades of kitchen command behind him, understands that feeding heads of state is about meeting his guests halfway on the plate.

“For diplomatic banquets, I would serve 50 per cent Western and 50 per cent Chinese dishes,” he explains. “Dining at that level is negotiation by other means. You give a little, they give a little, and the meal becomes the middle ground.” He pauses before turning to the thought experiment at hand.

“But if he were really willing to try something new,” Shi says, “I would make him a Huaiyang classic: clear-braised crab roe ‘lion’s head’ meatball. It’s soft, tender, fragrant and melts in the mouth. No heavy chewing required, and no need to face a whole animal. That might be a good start.”

Shi knows a thing or two about first impressions – especially when a United States president is in the room.