Eating Through Beijing with matthew winter

Seeing as my time in China was swiftly coming to an end, I...

Tue, 22 May 2012 23:07:43 -0400

Seeing as my time in China was swiftly coming to an end, I decided to pay a visit to the Chinese National Minorities Museum and Theme Park. Pretty interesting place to visit if your time in China is limited and want to get a feel for the architecture and traditions of the minorities of China. By talking to the people there, I found out that the government makes sure to hire people or even move them out for a time period from their native province to work in Beijing to represent their minority. Really fun to walk around, watch different performances, and have a cup of Inner Mongolian horse milk whiskey. Awesome. While I was in the area I visited the Bird’s nest which is just massive. Everything was looking up to be a great day and then it started to get dark and thunder. By the time I took the subway back to the stop by my hostel it was pouring rain and it didn’t look like it was going to stop anytime soon. Later that night I found out that some subway stations actually had some flooding problems because it rained so much! When I decided to make the run for my hostel with no umbrella I just took out whatever protection I had to shield myself from the rain and went for it. About a quarter of the way back to my hostel, a Muslim restaurant caught my eye and that sounded a lot better than running in the rain. I gladly sat down and ordered food as soon as I could get a menu. I remembered a friend from class talking about how he loved this dish that had bread and lamb on top with a broth/gravy on it so I knew I had to get that, and I got a stir fried peanut dish with cucumbers and carrots. The lamb dish was the perfect main course for the situation. There is nothing better to eat when its raining outside and your soaking wet. It is served super hot when it gets to your table, the steam rises into the cold air, there is nothing else that will heat you to the core! At first I used my chopsticks to tackle the mound of lamb on top, but after a few minutes you realize this is a hand dish. The bread by itself is great, I’ve had it many times in Beijing, but with that reddish gravy in there with the lamb it is out of this world. Savory, deep, hardy. I dream about this dish sometimes. My only regret is that this was the only time I had it in Beijing. The peanut side dish was great and pretty straight forward. Stir fried peanuts with a sweet and vinegary taste and then you hit a red pepper and it just pops! Great addition to the lamb dish. I’m still enjoying the use of stir fried cucumber here in China, I never would have thought to use cucumber in that way but it really brings a natural sweetness and crunch to the dish. In America we pretty much just eat cucumber raw, so this technique was refreshing. I’ll definitely have to start cooking it this way!

When I returned from Korea, seeing as I was done with my...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:20:00 -0500

When I returned from Korea, seeing as I was done with my language classes, I made it a priority to meet up with a calligrapher that I met in a Beijing subway. He also has a big beard and I when I saw him walking next to me I greeted him saying something to the effect of “greetings my beard brother”. He turned to look at me and had to do a double take because his beard was almost as long as mine! Come to find out he is a calligrapher that copies the style of Mao Zedong……which is…..very interesting to say the least. As soon as I got settled into my hostel I gave him a call and he said he was free the next day for lunch. Lunch!? in a Chinese person’s house?? oohh yes, this is going to be awesome. I have never had a meal in a Chinese person’s home and jumped at the opportunity. When the time came, I met him at his local subway stop and walked to his apartment. His wife was busy preparing the meal, so he went on to showing me his calligraphy, all the people he has met and taking, I kid you not, 15 minutes of non stop photos, all of him not smiling. Then we all sat down, and one by one him and his wife brought out plates of food. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…..7. Seven plates of food… Seven. Perplexed as how we were going finish it all, we started in. His wife prepared boiled shrimp, chicken in mushroom sauce, celery and tofu skin, pork dumplings, chicken and onions, preserved duck eggs, and a broccoli and garlic dish. The food was really great, my favorite being the dumplings (of course) and the chopped chicken in the mushroom sauce. I love food that is interactive. In China you have to eat around the bone, pull off shrimp heads, put the bone that you just had to gnaw around back in your chopsticks and place it down on the table. Yep, you heard me bones, heads, and other odds and ends all on the table, so strange as an american when your mom would get mad at you for not having a coaster on the table for your drink while eating a meal. Another dish that I really enjoyed that I had never tried before was the tofu skin. Try to imagine a combination of pasta and cheese in the best way possible. the thin strips of tofu skin has a wonderful checkered texture that just bites off like mozzarella string cheese would. The textural and funky award, however, goes to the preserved duck eggs. The outside of the egg was very similar to a hardened jello, I know, awesome, the yolk on the other hand was a little gooey and had a flavor akin to mud. Very interesting! During the meal, while his wife continuously dumped food in my bowl, he had me try a few of his various strong drinks (Bai Jiu/Chinese rice sake). He was very proud of his selection. And just when you think you can’t eat anymore, they fill up your bowl with more food and your glass with another shot of Bai Jiu. When I told them that there was no way I could eat anymore, my friend asked me if I liked noodles. Cautiously I said yes, and WHY. Because he is accustomed to eating noodles after a meal. Well of course he is! Why wouldn’t he be! I’m already stuffed, wondering how I’m going to make it back on the subway without being sick and here we go, another bowl of food! After two slurps of wheat noodles there was just no way I could continue. Stuffed and quite satisfied we sat on the couch to chat for the next hour while he offered me cigarettes from what is one of the most expensive brands in China, I think one pack of cigarettes of this brand is around $25 US maybe more I forget. This was one of my favorite and most valuable experiences in China. I will never forget my time with him and his family and definitely not forget when he whipped out his saxophone and played a few songs. Epic.

This was my last meal in Korea. Samgyeopsal. This is hands...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 12:03:05 -0500

This was my last meal in Korea. Samgyeopsal. This is hands down my favorite thing to eat in the entire world, it’s even better with friends to share it with. I love the barbeque culture in Seoul, they are everywhere, serving up prime cuts of meat with fresh vegetables and plenty of cold beer and soju to accompany it. So if I haven’t mentioned it before, samgyeopsal is uncured pork belly. Its like fresh bacon, without the salty taste. They bring it to you on a plate in strips and you cut it up yourself and cook it on the grill in front of you. When is done, you can dip it in salt if you want, put it in a leafy green of your choosing and if you’re me, put the Korean hot pepper paste, a couple slices of fresh garlic! Cook. Put together. Eat. Repeat. I’ll most assuredly miss being here with Chad and his friends, trying the bounty that is Korean cuisine. I’ll also miss the Karaoke, soju, riding Seoul’s public transportation with Chad, and smelling like garlic 24/7. I often got asked by Chinese and Korean people if I like Chinese food or Korean food better. I would have to answer: If I had to eat it everyday, I would choose Chinese food because there is so much variety and flavors to choose from. But if it was a last meal, No doubt its going to be Korean food!

OH MY GOSH, I have never been so happy to see a huge pile of ice...

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:00:05 -0500

OH MY GOSH, I have never been so happy to see a huge pile of ice in front of my face. This is the day that we went to go visit the Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul. We took the bus into the city, walked around the palace in the hot hot sun and I was ddaaannngg thirsty. And no pansy 250ml can of chilsung cider was going to do the job. Chad and I met his friend at this tea house in the middle of an alleyway shopping district and all got different kinds of teas. I got an iced citron (grapefruit/lemon) tea and being American and used to starbucks iced tea, I expected tea with half a cup of ice inside. Nope…. even better, a glass full of shaved ice and tea! And I must say it was very refreshing until I got to the bottom of the glass and realized I was hungry too and started eating the rinds, then I started to feel sick. But other than that, great atmosphere, great time with friends, great tea.

I have now had the quintessential Korean street snacks...

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:01:00 -0500

I have now had the quintessential Korean street snacks ddeokbokki and sundae. And they are my new favorite thing. ddoekbokki is the red one and made with rice cake and fish with tons of red pepper sauce! I LOVE THE TEXTURE OF DDEOKBOKKI. They give you large toothpicks to eat it with and you just skewer those suckers and chomp em down. I don’t know if there’s much you could compare it to in the western world. It’s like a dense chewy cylinder that soaks up all that lovely red hot, little bit fishy, dash of oil red sauce. It would be like if tootsie rolls were 20 times their girth, made of dense rice and flavored like Mexican red hot sauce with a twist. yum. The sundae was just as satisfying and delightful! I LOVE THE TEXTURE OF SUNDAE. Sundae is a Pork blood sausage made with rice inside of a casing. When the rice thickens up they cut it up with some pork organs for garnish and you’re ready to go! This is definitely my favorite textural food thus far. When you skewer it with your big tooth pick, dip it in the ddeokbokki sauce (optional) and pop it in your mouth I feel like you have to spend a minute or two processing all of the textures that your experiencing. Sort of like the Taiwanese fried chicken. So at first you may bite through the casing that pops, then work through a similar ddeokbokki texture with the inside of the sausage and then there’s a wonderful ………clumpy(?)ness to them as you separate out the rice filling chewing. (are you allowed to use clumpy as a pleasing texture?) Well it really is great. No matter what word you use to describe them. Whenever you see this on the street or in a restaurant and kind of quiver at the name of Pork blood sausage, don’t worry, calm down, and this will be its new name: Delicious Steamed Rice Sausage. Sounds a little better right?

Kalguksu means knife cut noodles and I was told that its a...

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:53:01 -0500

Kalguksu means knife cut noodles and I was told that its a traditional noodle dish that is eaten in the summertime. We were strolling around Myong-dong shopping district in the rain and found this place that has maybe 3 items on the menu: kalguksu, dumplings, and something else. It’s like the In N Out burger of Korea. The restaurant was small and bustling, apparently this is where you get your kalguksu! Kalguksu is a noodle dish with hand cut noodles, broth, wonton like dumplings on top and then what seemed like a ball of ground pork/beef on top. The noodle broth was simple light yet a depth to it. It was similar to a thick chicken broth with a light flavor but same basic consistency. The noodles were a little but thicker than I was anticipating, but it was an extra textural delight, it gave you something more to much on. There couldn’t have been anything much better than this to warm you up on this rainy day. And it made it all the better with the scorching hot steamed dumplings and side dishes. I think I mentioned before that I just love trying all the different kimchi in Seoul. Every restaurant has it own different kimchi and this one was one of the sweetest I’ve tasted, very crisp with also a hint of the traditional kimchi flavor.

I was amazed at how many cafes there are in Seoul! There is...

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:44:08 -0400

I was amazed at how many cafes there are in Seoul! There is such a cool cafe culture! Every one of them has their own theme, accents, aesthetic decorations that make each one unique. We ran to Cocobruni in the middle of a rainstorm seeking shelter! The walls of the cafe were lined with encyclopedia pages and when I made it over to the counter I saw of object of my desire. Chocolate truffle with gold flakes. How more decadent can you get??? I not only want food, I want gold on my food. It’s like the ultimate luxury. I’ve seen gold flake before on food and I also know that it’s popular with some people in Japan where it’s thought to have beneficial powers. I don’t know how much it helped me but it sure was a good truffle. Nothing spectacular, but on a cold rainy day hot cocoa and dessert can go a long way.

Bibimbap. Say it with me, bi bim bap. Don’t be scared,...

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 01:01:06 -0400

Bibimbap. Say it with me, bi bim bap. Don’t be scared, it’s not a Hanson song. On my tour of South Korean food, this was a staple that I was told I had to have. Chad and I went to visit the COEX Center in Gangnam we walked around the food court a few times trying to decide what to have and found this bibimbap place. I had to go with the boolgogi (sliced marinated beef) and octopus. So basically they take a stone bowl, stick rice in it with string mushrooms, meng bean sprouts, seaweed and other stuff depending on where you go to get it. Then they heat up the bowl till the rice crackles. Then when you get it you mix it up and enjoy all the wonderful and distinct ingredients and how they play against the texture of the hot, slightly hard rice. Then you get to the gold….. You realize that all the rice at the bottom edges of the bowl is crispy! I imagine this is the Korean equivalent to the burnt edges on the macaroni and cheese pan. Those good, burnt, warm, crunchy bits of comfort food that makes you feel at home!

I love Korean food. The more I eat here the more I love it. Every meal comes with little side dishes of kimchi, pickled vegetables, salads, fruit…. I love eating like this! I told my wife that we should totally start doing this with our food at home. Who cares?? Let’s have pork chops with mashed potatoes and then have like little side dishes of salads, pickles, garlic, onions, ect!

Butterfingers. Not the candy bar. Not an adjective describing...

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 00:35:53 -0400

Butterfingers. Not the candy bar. Not an adjective describing one who often drops items. Butterfinger Pancakes in Seoul, Korea. A haven for the diner deprived expat. During my stay in China I went to go visit my friend Chad who’s teaching English in a suburb of Seoul. It was great to see him again and be able to spend a week touring Seoul, catching up, and doing what me and Chad do best, eating. The next few posts I’ll be sharing some of the food we experienced there.

So even before I left for China, Chad told me about Butterfinger’s. It kind of confused me why he would be talking about an American breakfast diner in a figurative sea of boolgogi and samgyeopsal… Just got really hungry for samgyeopsal. Let’s move on. He told me that they have the best pancakes he’s ever had and we have to go asap. So one of the first mornings I arrive we take the bus there and walk through the shopping centers and cross a street and there it was. The first thing you notice is it looks like an American diner. The second thing you notice is that the tables are huge. And if you’re an American traveling from China, the third thing you notice is that they have free refills on Coke and have ice in their cups. An amazing concept. They have quite a menu, full of every breakfast delight you can think of, along with many different choices of butter and syrups. I already knew that I needed some kind of pancake combo. So we order and I go through a couple glasses of Coke Zero just enjoying the simple pleasure of ICE (!) and when they put the plate in front of me I realize that I didn’t order an ordinary breakfast. I have before me the holy cross of breakfast foods. Hash browns, pancakes, scrambled eggs and sausage/bacon with a center of vanilla butter. I don’t even know what to say after that, just spend a minute thinking about all that. … Done? I had to try the pancakes first because that was the reason we came and Chad was right, amazing pancakes. These are probably the best pancakes I’ve ever had as well (besides my wife’s pancakes, I love you honey). Usually when you get pancakes in an American diner or IHOP/Denny’s you get fluffy soft pancakes. Which are good, but nothing compared to the complexity of Butterfinger’s. Here they were hot, a little crispy on the outside from when they pour the batter on the hot pan and on the inside, soft and delicate. Once spread with the butter of your choice with a liberal swirling of syrup and you’re ready to embark on the joyride that is Butterfinger’s. Note to Foreigers: My experience with bacon in Korea is that it is not salt cured, its just pan fried fresh pork belly, which is good, but different. Just know that as you bite into it. I didn’t know that. I wish I did.

This is it! This is the real 炸酱面/ Zhajiangmian/ Soybean paste...

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 12:00:05 -0400

This is it! This is the real 炸酱面/ Zhajiangmian/ Soybean paste noodles! As you can see this is leaps and bounds different than the previous “spaghetti” I posted. There is actually character and an experience you can grab on to. So the restaurant that serves this, specializes in this type of noodles and you can tell! First of all the sauce is totally and completely better on so many levels. Thicker, darker, richer, salty, more complex. And second of all the number and variety of vegetables trumps the other one easily. We’re talking radish, cucumber, green onion, mung bean sprouts and both types of soy beans. When the bowl gets to your table the noodles and toppings are separated by a bowl on top of the bowl of hot noodles and you mix in the toppings yourself. Not only fun but also a delicious adventure. The noodles were also completely different from the ones I tried last time. The noodles from the inexpensive noodle shop tasted exactly like spaghetti noodles you can by at any store in America. These noodles were thicker and had more substance and chewy resistance when biting into them. These were definitely hand made. I’m happy my friends took me here after class one day, lest my prejudices and the shortcomings from my first time eating Zhajiangmian sear my mind forever.

MY WIFE HAS ARRIVED IN CHINA. I need to skip ahead of some...

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 23:15:12 -0400

MY WIFE HAS ARRIVED IN CHINA. I need to skip ahead of some photos from the past to now bring you the present. My beautiful wife, Aly arrived late on Friday to join me here in the middle kingdom. My classes are done, my fluency has improved, now it’s time to party. Last night I took her to 簋街 Guijie Sichuan street in the Eastern District. I am so thankful that my dear darling taitai (wife in Chinese) is as adventurous as I am with food and enjoys spicy food even more than I do. When going to Gui street the first thing you notice are the red lanterns hanging in front of nearly every restaurant as well as the hosts outside the restaurant calling out to people on the street, every one assuring you that their restaurant is the best Sichuan restaurant in the sea of Sichuan restaurants. We went into one that looked a little cleaner than some and not as 5 star extravagant as others and most important of all when eating Sichuan food at least 4 air conditioning towers in the restaurant. Before we walked in I knew what we were going to get. Numbing spicy Crawfish. It’s the perfect combination of East and…South. My mother in law is from Louisiana so my wife is no stranger to crawfish boils and she likes spicy food so badda bing badda boom you get the picture. So ordering the crawdads was the easy part, eating them was a different story. With the plastic gloves provided by the restaurant to prevent spice burn you have to try to crack open the crawfish in order to eat them which I learned early on that I was not good at. Aly informed me it is not uncommon for men to not know the ways of crawfish as her mother has to crack them for her father eat. I don’t know what it is about it women and crawfish, maybe they have more patience, but as a man, I just want to eat my food, not play with it. I want to see the steak in front of me, not a Rubik’s cube. Needless to say it was amazing. Scorching hot when it arrived. Cooked in more red hot peppers than you can count braised in Chili oil, Sichuan pepper corns and garlic. After you crack them open and pop them in your mouth you feel the initial warm meat of the crawfish but it’s just the kindling for the fire. After a short while enjoying all the chili oil soaked meat your mouth turns into a circus of spicy sensations. And it’s that kind of spicy where the only thing you can do is eat more, there’s no going back. So in between the crawfish we would have an occasional chicken’s foot. That’s right, chicken’s feet. Also spicy. I’ve been waiting to try chicken’s feet for a while now in China and it was totally worth the wait. It was cold which I wasn’t really expecting for some reason and the only good thing about chicken’s feet is the way you get to eat it. After you get over the fact that you’re actually eating a chicken’s foot and just dig in, it’s pretty fun nibbling at the meat around toes and ankle. It almost turns into a game of how much you can get off the foot. Great experience. And when you think you can’t take the heat anymore you order a big bottle of beer. And don’t just leave it at that, you have to specifically ask for the coldest bottle in the fridge! And I kid you not that is the coldest beer I’ve ever had. They brought it out and in the air conditioned restaurant the bottle was so cold you could see the vapor moving down the bottle like dry ice would. Man, how do you spell refreshment? y.a.n.j.i.n.g. Definitely a repeat before we go back home!

I love China in the Summer time. Fresh fruit everywhere and all...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:03:05 -0400

I love China in the Summer time. Fresh fruit everywhere and all the lychees you can eat! These are 荔枝王 or “Lychee King” its like a giant lychee. They are a lot more expensive than regular lychees, so this was a treat during my Chinese study time.

Yes, it happened. For the fourth of July I celebrated by going...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:00:05 -0400

Yes, it happened. For the fourth of July I celebrated by going to McDonald’s. I didn’t know how government officials would feel about me running around in an American flag costume setting off fireworks, so I felt this would be a safe alternative. I really don’t want to talk about McDonald’s food on my blog, I just wanted to say that it was good, it was comforting to have something familiar for a change, and it was shared with my good friend Manuel. I’m not talking about McDonald’s food on my blog.

I have now moved into an entirely different realm of food. ...

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 12:00:06 -0400

I have now moved into an entirely different realm of food. Brain. (queue scary Halloween music) This was my first brain. After watching years of Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods I knew I was ready to take the plunge. I had an idea of what to expect. It’s been always described as tasting like how the animal would normally, just creamier. And that’s essentially it, it’s not bad once you realize that you’re not eating a chunk of meat, it’s brain and it’s creamy, and that’s ok, its good.

I was walking down the hutong I live in and I never tried this noodle shop that is pretty close to my hostel so I decide to give it a try. I see it on the menu and think, today is the day, the day that the Lord has made, the day for pork brain noodle soup. So I ask the owner if its fresh, she said it was so we were in business! When it arrived it was a glorious bowl of glistening noodles enveloped in a deep steaming broth delicately decorated with green vegetables and herbs. And there it laid. There was no getting around it, no picking through the noodles to uncover a secret, you knew who the main player of the game was. And it was as I was told, a creamy version of pork with almost a slight chicken flavor. The texture was like…a really thick yogurt. When you can feel the outside it seems like there would be some resistance but when you bite down on it or squish it between your tongue and roof of your mouth, it its just a creamy porky delight. the vegetables were exceptionally cooked as well. Not boiled to death, but still having a crispness to them. BRAIN. TRY IT. You’ll be glad you did.

I have experienced that which is Taiwanese fried chicken. And...

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:22:24 -0400

台湾盐酥鸡 Taiwanese Fried Chicken

I have experienced that which is Taiwanese fried chicken. And let me tell ya, those guys in Taiwan know how to fry some chicken. About twice a week I’d see my Canadian friend have this little bag of chicken that he’d eat with a long toothpick and one day I finally asked him where he got it. So I went to the stall and I didn’t even have to tell them what I wanted, I guess foreigner = fried chicken and not duck heads. Even though I did get a duck head too. One of the characters in in the name of the fried chicken is 酥 su, which when got back to the hostel I asked one of my roommates what it meant and he said “like…crunchy…and like soft. Do you understand?” …….No I don’t understand! You just described two different textures! So I checked my dictionary and found out the definition was listed as such: flaky, crunchy, limp, soft, silky, fluffy. WHAT?! All of those definitely are not the same thing in the English language. Guess what, they are with Taiwanese fried chicken! The texture is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. When you bite into it it is a little crunchy and flaky because it’s been fried, but not like the Colonel’s extra crispy, its still soft and actually a little silky on your tongue……..weird. I couldn’t get over it. The breading on the chicken was not thin or too thick and every time I’d have a piece, I’d go through the checklist. Is it flaky…yeah, crunchy…of course, limp….yeah kinda, soft….it really is!, silky…uh huh, fluffy…..yup. It literally hits all of those textures. Needless to say I went back the next day for further inspection and serious blogging research. So even though I am in the Middle Kingdom, I will raise my …..wing to Taiwan and the textural playground they have created.

When I visited Beihai Park north of the Forbidden City I was...

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:00:06 -0400

腰果鸡丁 Cashew Chicken

醋溜土豆丝 Stirfried potato with vinegar

When I visited Beihai Park north of the Forbidden City I was trying to find a place that wouldn’t cost me an arm and a leg to eat. Well, I guess anywhere in Beijing is still cheap, but ………ok maybe a small arm and a leg. It might have been the only restaurant in Beihai Park and luckily it was reasonably priced and had a wide selection of things to choose. These two dishes where both firsts for me. I have never eaten potato like this before, it was shredded and fried just enough to where the texture was flexible yet still had a crunch. In the States, when you have potato its either mashed, sliced and cooked all the way or fried, so this “in between” method was refreshing. The cashew chicken puzzled me at first because the English said it was walnut chicken and the Chinese said cashew chicken. I just assumed that the Chinese was right and it was. I have never eaten anything like this before in China or back home. Usually food here is some kind of meat or vegetable and then stir fried in some kind of sauce. You can still taste the individual taste of the thing that was fried up, but there is also the continuous flavor of the sauce. The cashew chicken didn’t have a sauce so when eating it there were four distinct flavors that keep coming back: chicken, carrot, cucumber, and cashew nut. Everything is stir fried up together and does create a generic clear sauce when stir fried, but every part of the dish was so defined, I’ve never had anything like it.

I was out with my friend Manuel from Colombia and we stumbled...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 10:01:05 -0400

Stir-fried beef with potato

猪肉香菇饺子 Pork and shitake dumplings

I was out with my friend Manuel from Colombia and we stumbled across a dumpling place on the 护国寺小吃街 Huguosi Snack Street near our hostel. We were both looking for something simple and as close to comfort food as we could find. So we chose beef and potatoes! It was a great plate of food, just stir fried beef and potatoes in a brown sauce packed on top of a heap of rice served to you steaming hot. We also got a huge plate of pork and shitake mushroom dumplings for about 2 dollars US. Needless to say we could not finish it all and took the rest home for lunch the next day. I’ve probably had more shitake mushrooms in the 4 weeks I’ve been here than my whole entire life. Beijingers love shitake mushrooms. and so do I so it works out. The dumplings were great, cheap and filling. Mix it up with the vinegar and soy sauce that the restaurant provides and its a wonderful night of food!

It’s been a little while since I’ve blogged! ...

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 04:01:40 -0400

炸酱面 Noodles with Soybean paste

脆骨 Cartilage on a stick

板筋 Tendon on a stick

It’s been a little while since I’ve blogged! I’ve taken a break from exploring the food world and have been eating cheap cafeteria food at my university and studying a lot more! I went to a noodle house a while ago and heard that I needed to try the noodles with soybean paste, that it was something you have to have while in Beijing. So I ordered it and believe me when I say it tasted like cold American spaghetti with ground beef in a brown sauce. Like, if you are craving spaghetti and can’t find it anywhere just go there. It was nothing that special and later in my stay I learned that it was actually a really low class version of the dish, I’ll post the real deal later! The other skewers where the strangest I could find on the menu. The first was called “crispy bones” and the second I still don’t know what kind of tendon it is but it is some kind of tendon. It was really interesting because you can’t usually order just a cartilage dish in the US. I used to go to this restaurant in LA that had a dish called “Fried Chicken knees with salt and pepper” and that is the extent of of my cartilage eating, it is a great dish if you ever get a chance, I feel that the Chinese consider cartilage as another cut of meat. The skewer I got was just as you would expect cartilage to taste. I little rubbery with a clean snap as you bite through it and no taste except for the classic general skewer seasoning found all over Beijing. A little spicy, salty, hint of pepper. The tendon on the other hand had a more complex texture, still very chewy and a little fibrous, and there comes a point where you just cannot chew and break it down anymore…you just have to swallow. Happy I tried them but maybe I’ll go for the lamb skewers next time!

I was walking around campus looking for a bite to eat when...

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 13:16:52 -0400

西安宫廷香酥牛肉饼 Xi'an Beef Pastry

玉米冰淇淋 Corn Ice Cream

红烧肉面 Red Braised Pork Noodles

I was walking around campus looking for a bite to eat when around the corner from the super market was this grab n go snack shack. That’s the best way I can describe it, no chairs, no entrance, just a window where you yell your orders in and exchange legal tender for delicious morsels. I had never tried the Xi’an beef pastries so I decided to give them a go, and glad I did. First the dough is a little thicker than phyllo dough and just layered and layered around the filling of beef and cabbage and onions, then fried to golden crispy flaky perfection. Another day I was wondering around the campus convenient store and saw an ice cream package that said it was corn ice cream…… what? Now I’ve had Chinese corn candy before and absolutely love it, so I definitely had to try this. Long story short, favorite ice cream hands down. Now in the States you MIGHT be able to find corn ice cream in a specialty ice cream shop in San Francisco or New York, but outside of that it is unheard of. On the outside of the ice cream has a layer that tastes similar to a slightly soggy cake cone that you get with ice cream in the US, you know, that slightly soft and chewy cone that has a bit of resistance when you try to rip it with your front teeth, ya that. And that ice cream tastes exactly like the Chinese corn candy, not a fresh corn taste, but just imagine how a fresh strawberry or grape is to its candy counterpart and you have an idea what corn ice cream might taste like, not exactly the sweet aspect but the deep accentuated corn flavor. Definitely have repeated that adventure 3 or 4 times since. The Red Braised Pork noodles I enjoyed at the university cafeteria. And I have to say, it wasn’t that bad for “dorm food”. The cut of the meat is pork belly, which I do have to say is probably the best cut due to half of the meat is fat. And fat is flavor my friends. This was a fantastic texture combination of noodles, poached bok choy and the texture of the half tender meat half smooth fat that just soaked up the deep broth. Great lunch!

Note to single male travelers: When walking through Wangfujing...

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 23:03:00 -0400

蝎子 Scorpions

撒尿牛丸 Boiled Beef Balls

羊肉串 Lamb Skewers

脆皮乳鸽 Young Cripsy Pigeon

王府井小吃街 Wangfujing Snack Street

Note to single male travelers: When walking through Wangfujing in the late afternoon/evening and a friendly English-speaking woman approaches you asking if she can walk with you and practice her English then asks you if you want to go get something to drink before you head off to do whatever you were planing to do, the answer is always no. During my walk to snack street I had three women come up to me and ask me the same questions: 1. Where are you from? 2. How long are you going to stay in China? 3.Would you like to go drink some tea or something so we can talk? I don’t know what they want or if there is a guild of women who genuinely want to practice English, don’t linger to find out, my experience is its always money motivated. Oh yes and now the food. I felt like this was a sort of pilgrimage for me. I’ve seen this snack street on so many programs and online videos that to be there was a little surreal for me. Almost everything that you can imagine on a stick is there including: ostrich, lamb, squid, whole (small) sharks, lizards, grasshoppers, scorpions, pigeons, fruit…you get the idea. Then there are those things that are not stick-friendly, like deep fried ice cream, dumplings, soup, noodles, pigs feet, boiled intestines, cakes, pastries and a whole lot more. Having such a large selection I was only able to try so much. While I was there I got to try scorpions, boiled beef balls, lamb skewers, soup dumplings, Chinese mountain hawthorn (fruit), and crispy young pigeon. The scorpions were a little frightening up close and personal but when fried with a salt seasoning, taste exactly like one of those crispy salty french fries that are a little hollow in the middle that when you crunch into it a squirt of oil sort of splashes your palate. yeah, tastes exactly like that. The boiled beef balls are pretty straight forward, beef and fish balls in a beef broth with some cilantro, the balls are filled with the scalding hot broth too, so if you get a chance to try it, make sure to wait a little bit. The lamb skewers are just as good as they sounds, roasted over a hot flame with several seasoning processes, including a spicy seasoning. The meat is tender and fragrant, and there is always at least one inch of pure lamb fat. Oh yeah, slightly crispy on the outside and the rest is just succulent flavor. I’m salivating thinking of it. As for the pigeon, this was my first time consuming a whole bird, beak, brain, feet and all. Because it is a young pigeon and it was fried then roasted, the bones were small and brittle enough to just take a bite of whatever and enjoy it. It pretty much tastes like chicken, it seemed a little darker, it didn’t have the brightness of chicken meat. This too had a host of seasonings and is probably the hottest thing that has ever been served to me, like temperature hot. So naturally I loved it! All together a great experience that I plan on repeating while I’m here in Beijing!