Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Finally into China after all this time!! I cannot believe it, I honestly think I'm dreaming! The next 2 weeks is going to be overwhelming, insane, terrifying and over way too quickly. But it's also difficult to update blogs in China… so I'm writing them here and will post them as soon as I can… But it means I can group some topics together a bit and this one is about food!
As you may have noticed in my blog we like to eat, and we like to eat good food… In the Central Asian countries there was a definite lack of variety and it very nearly pushed me over the edge to deciding to go home or not! But China is already making up for the hiatus of tasty goods!
Our first meal, a celebratory, and much needed after a long day with nothing but caramels to sustain us, was incredible. The menu was a huge A4 book! Only later did we find out it was Hotpot. We picked a soup/broth (I chose mushroom, Fintan chose Sichuan spicy) then we picked out meat, fish balls, baby cabbage, coriander, more mushrooms, pumpkin pies and sauces. First the broth was brought over and put in front of us into recesses cut into the table. The waitress switched on heaters in front of us and as the other items were brought out she showed us how to pour the sauce into one dish, wait for the broth to boil then put in our ingredients (we had thought the dishes were cooked, but you mix it up in your broth). Amazing! We were so delighted we went back there the next night too! We also found out that the Chinese eat very early, normally around 6pm, so aren't all that happy to see us coming in to eat at 8pm!
Breakfast in China - we had no idea what to expect, but I gathered it wouldn't be cheerios or an egg and sausage sandwich! The guides took us to a restaurant that looked like a fast food joint and even had a picture like the KFC colonel! Our guide ordered for us - we each had a bowl of warm soya bean milk with a doughnut stick and steamed buns filled with meat and vegetables that you eat with soy sauce and chilli jam (even first thing in the morning!) Well, the second breakfast in Fengzhen was even more amazing - everything from noodles to stir fry bok choy with garlic, to steamed jam filled buns!
There are a few key hand signals and words, not that we know what they are… but generally waitresses think we are funny and are very patient trying to explain in Chinese something we have no idea about. Although, I have recognised the stabbing motion as meaning "can I have a fork?" So continuing south we broke our own rule of ordering - find a busy restaurant, look at what everyone else is eating and pick something from their table by way of pointing and gestures. We found a restaurant with a picture menu and some English words (not necessarily in any order or meaning anything) and decided to order for ourselves… mmmm…
Well, we ended up with way too much food for one thing… I ordered spicy green beans and a dish of crispy fried chicken with mushrooms, garlic and chilli. We devoured this - it was delicious… Then Fintan's dish arrived. He had ordered it because it had potatoes. The waitress had seemed surprised and reiterated the name "pheasant?" Yes… Well, not pheasant, but tortoise… splayed out on top of the potatoes, with its little decapitated head facing Fintan! I was very nearly sick - I couldn't face eating it. I had already filled up on my dish, but even if I hadn't, I don't think I could have eaten it. Fintan had some potatoes and then we left… The waitresses must think we are crazy - ordering the most expensive thing on the menu (still only 7 Euro) and then not eating any of the meat!
But this has been the only negative food experience - we've had Datong noodles, Xi'an Paomo (doughy pancake ripped up with beef soup and noodles poured over the top and eaten with cloves of pickled garlic), shredded beef in a pancake roll (Chinese fastfood)… The best label we've seen was Chongqing Strange Taste Horsebeans! Delicious.
One night in a family run restaurant in the outskirts of Guiyang we were sitting eating hotpot and a large group came in. A lady was taking a picture of me on her phone, so I waved and said Ni hao. She came over and spoke Chinese, thinking I could speak Chinese. I told her only 2 words… she spoke to our guide for a while then gave him a box… he shook his head, but she insisted… It turns out she was giving us a gift of a bottle of Moutai - the liquor Guiyang is famous for! In exchange all she would take, and all we had to offer, was a photograph with us! We were so overwhelmed and amazed by her generosity and kindness!
- comments
Trace Ahh, I miss China! Love the photo story - I used to pretend I was a celeb when posing for a white girl photo with locals! x
mum I hope you got a photo of the tortoise and potato dish, haha. I'll have that, just hold the tortoise....