Chinese Food!

Chinese food.. and not the kind I'm accustomed to. Without much of a background in Chinese cuisine I can't describe it very well  beyond my personal experience. This is because most Chinese food is wholly composed of, or at least contains, meat, and being a vegetarian this makes me rather wary. Seeing hunks of meat, or fish for that matter, hanging from trees is a wretched reality for me. Many of these meats end up skewered on a stick, roasted over embers, and consumed by anyone on the sidewalk - tentacles and all. There is one delicious treat-on-a-stick that I can rave about though. Candied haw. Think candy-apple. Shrink the fruit and make it a bit mushier. Replace the core with largish seeds. Pop five or six 'haws', a winter-time fruit, on each stick and voila. A damn sweet snack, anytime of day, coming in at 17 cents a stick. Seeds are often mistaken for candy so chew carefully! (That problem is avoided by opting for the equally delicious candied strawberry, or augmented by the candied haw rolled in sunflower seeds.)

Dumplings, be they steamed or boiled, are omnipresent too. Walking down the street you'll pass streetside stalls specializing in serving up these bite-sized snacks. Problem is that I was warned that basically every dumpling contains dead animal flesh and I can't read the Chinese characters on the menu to verify this. Luckily I did stumble across 'Lily's Dumplings' where Lily herself not only handed me an English menu, but also addressed me with a "Hello". Dousing my veggie dumplings in a mixture of dark vinegar and spice I enjoyed each sloppy wet bite, reminiscent of boiled perogies, with much more than a hint of garlic. Washing them down with a couple Red Fang beers only added to the experience. Including a tomato soup that could feed a small Chinese family we plopped down only 50 kuai (under $9) for the whole meal.

The abundance of street food always entices me, but for aforementioned reasons I usually can't partake. There are a few things I've spotted that looked reasonably safe. One I ate yesterday was essentially an omelette prepared on one side of a pancake. Served piping hot, fresh off the griddle, it was well worth $0.40. 

Similarly I sampled another doughy concoction I'd spotted. Indicating that I'd like one the lady pulled a wad of raw dough, smacked it on the flat, hot, metal surface and it began cooking (frying?). Next she pointed to a menu, completely in Chinese except for numbers beside the symbol I could now recognize as meaning yuan (Chinese dollars). Shrugging I point to the most expensive option since it was under 50 cents anyway, but immediately wave her off as she produces a wiener from her magical cart. Putting it away she indicates toward the menu again. I respond with a blank look and decide to have a peek for myself. I go around to see what she's got in the stall and spotting cucumbers first I decide on them. The dough finishes on the first side and gets flipped, smeared with mayo, ketchup and a melange of powdered spices. In goes the cucumber before being wrapped up and presented to a very skeptical me. Maybe it was hunger, perhaps it was simply fried dough and mayo, but it was surprisingly tasty.

What else have I had?

Hot pot - a make-your-own hearty soup meal similar to the meal that took me by surprise in Thailand, with at least 20 possible dipping sauces which kept me busy trying a smörgåsbord of combinations of those. There was a similar station on the street which we stopped at out of desperation. In a bowl we placed mushrooms, greens and sticks of tofu we picked off a wall of produce and handed them to the lady standing at the steaming vat out front. Seating ourselves at a table a very large bowl of oily, spicy 'soup', filled with all our choices was soon served. Rather tasty we thought it was worth at least 20 yuan but had no way of asking so I handed her a hundred yuan bill, and was amazed, and slightly embarrassed when she gave me 94 in change. Deal!

Faux meat. There have been a couple places that make "are you SURE this isn't meat?" dishes that we've come across. The first, in Beijing, with pork riblets, complete with mushy edible 'bones', was rather gross. The next was a surprisingly tasty peanut 'chicken' dish - and I mastered using chopsticks to pick up individual nuts too!

China has proven to be the most difficult place to nourish ourselves (outside of Western friendly Shanghai), with it not being uncommon for Larissa and I to wander the streets in search of a warm dish for a full hour before settling. This is one reason why our breakfast for two weeks straight consisted of only buttery baked goods - the other reason being that danishes and croissants are yummy.

In one particulary wretched incident we figured there'd be plenty near Tiananmen Square only to find ourselves still searching, incredibly hungry, after nearly two hours. With 'give up' not being an option (there wasn't even a McDonalds or pizza joint to fill the void) we eventually found a noodle shop with an English menu. The bowl of noodles and tofu, hidden in a soupy liquid broth, was surprisingly tasty, but that may have been the hunger talking. We left when the drunk (we think) Chinese lady descended on me having finished making a scene (in English) with the other white guy in the restaurant.

Despite this long list of foods, it has been compiled after a full month in the country. Suffice it to say, I'm pretty sick of the two dishes that were quite often the only ones available to me: pizza and pasta.