Tidbits

Sleepover at Ikea - Maybe this is the only way to get to the $1 early enough…
A ramen bath - Japanese spa with special baths resembling instant noodles. I wanna play!
Old age homes for dogs - 1) Old dogs don’t like to be abandoned at strange places. 2) Playing with young puppies will probably cause the older dogs to die faster due to exhaustion.
A remote-controlled pigeon - Oh the poor thing…
An article on a brilliant method of teaching grade schoolers about bats and rabies. I smell a lawsuit.
Will trade beer for Crumpler bags. Tempted by the beanbag and messenger bags…

China: The Joys of Food

November 04, 2006, 1:24 am

The common things that people say about China is how cheap everything is, including the food. However, it is also my experience that no matter how cheap the food is, and how much variety there are, you just can’t bring yourself to eat it. Or perhaps your stomach can’t handle it. I find that often the case for food in China. Cause, (gasp), they are not stuff we are used to eating. That’s right, there’s not just one type of Chinese food!

The cuisine of Sichuan province is known for one main thing, spiciness. Everything pretty much has some spices to it. That and MSG. Their steamed veggies are spicy! The KFC is spicy! I swear if we ask the restaurant for no spice, no msg, and little oil, they are gonna just give us the food raw or something, as they won’t know what to do with it.

New Discoveries

This is what MSG looks like. I’ve always wondered about that. It’s so popular in the restaurants there, instead of soy sauce or salt and pepper shaker, they have a jar of this stuff instead.

So seafood is also very big with the Chinese. I mentioned in a previous post that in Chengdu, it seems like the customer catch their own dinner from the fish tanks. It’s not just fish, but crabs and other stuff too. The special they were advertising at the time is this pig-nosed turtle thing. I called it that anyways, but apparently that’s what they are "officially" called as well. It looks a bit too intelligent to be taken home and dumped live into a pot of boiling water though… Poor thing.

Cheated a bit here, this wasn’t in Sichuan, this meal was in Hong Kong. It’s called a Chinese Mitten Crab, named for it’s big boxy claws. It’s a fresh water crab that’s a popular delicacy in parts of China and Hong Kong around the fall time. It’s considered a threat to local species everywhere else such as in Europe where it is slowly invading. Geez, why don’t they ship them back to China, or eat them themselves! The crab meat was a bit tasteless and lacking, but the crab butter is amazing. Tastes just like salty egg york!

Franchise Invasion

I guess when all else fails, you can always rely on familiar American franchises for a meal. For some reason, KFC and Pizza Hut seems to be the popular ones in the Chengdu area. One place we were at, there were always more people at the KFC than at any of the other local eateries in the area. And of course, these franchise are also known for local specials. For this place, they served red bean egg tarts. Rather good.

There really are Starbucks every it seems. On the journey to Hong Kong, I could have gotten a Latte at Pearson, then at Vancouver, and then when I landed in Hong Kong, all conveniently located inside the terminal. This particular Starbucks location is at this pretty touristy "market" area in Chengdu. The area has historic buildings, arts and craft booths, as well as this food street market. However, this Starbucks might be the only "safe" place to find food for foreigners. (Check out the later photos to see why)

The decor of this Starbucks was quite nice, on the outside and inside, they tried to match the rest of the architecture in the area. There’s even an outdoor courtyard in the back for people to relax and enjoy their coffee, look over their notes, maps, photos, etc. Total. Tourist. Trap. Cause the only people I saw there were tourists, and white tourists at that. Considering how their prices are pretty equivalent to American prices, ie ~24 Y for a tall latte, in a place where you can get a nice hearty bowl of soup noodles for 5 Y. Only foreigners will pay that! I thought the espresso they put into the latte was pretty weak myself…

It Burns!

Our attempts at "authentic" local food had mix results. This first dish is from a favourite seafood hotpot place far from the touristy area. It was unlike any hotpot I’ve tried. Mostly because everything came cooked for you. It was the only non-spicy option on the menu, and consists of a giant pot full of essentially garlic, green onion, these little fishes, and the broth. (and it was still spicy) The fish had too much little bones that I just had to pick out. My parents had the same problem, even though they eat the bones of eels at Japanese restaurants (I tried to pick THOSE out too). The bones were a bit more solid than sardines, and so we just can’t bring ourselves to swallow it whole like the locals. As it was, I was a bit disturbed from the get-go, when while taking our orders, this cockroach scattered across the table, and the waitress squished with her BARE HAND.

Chengdu has another specialty that translates literally to "small eats". This meal consisted of a lot of little dishes of everything. Generally pretty good, but just couldn’t eat a couple of red dishes there, including this really nice tofu dish, cause it was too spicy.

Would You Eat That?

So what else was at that Starbucks food market that people can’t eat? How about this nice steaming pile of entrails from who knows what animal?

Or a crunchy rabbit head. Accompanied by a swan/geese neck. Yeah, the rabbit head were a bit disturbing. Without the ears (.. and skin.. and fur...) they looked awfully like giant rats.

Lastly, I was just highly amused by this happy old man with rotten teeth playing poster boy for these candied fruit things on a stick. What a way to encourage people to eat them, cause gosh, we want to end up as happy as him, with as many teeth!