China trip: food memories

So it's midnight. I'm bored of lit reviewing, and am slightly hungry... Hmmm I miss the food we had on China trip! Why don't I start the trip blogs from here?

WARNING: the following account may cause intense emotions (as well as stomach grumblings)!

Good food:
Faux “Camphor & Tea Smoked duck”, “Stir-fried Eel Strips” and mushroom dumplings with walnut milk, at Wenshu temple restaurant

Northern Sichuan cold glass noodles at Long Chao Shou – one of Chengdu’s most famous snackfood places.

Stewed old pumpkin in claypot, some tiny, extremely ragged looking restaurant in the town of Songpan.

Saozi noodles and pancake soaked in soup on Xian’s Muslim street.

Buffet breakfast at Xian Hotel. Ohhh, I’m so full.

Buns, pancakes with eggplant/radish/carrot fillings, milk, milk tea & soymilk for breakfast.

Hotpot at home. An overabundance of vegies, mushrooms, tofus, gluten balls...

Vegetarian buffet in Beijing, after cycling in the freezing wind for 1 hr.

Homemade, “sino-fied” sushies, using Chinese white vinegar and Chinese pickled radish to substitute for their Japanese counterparts... Still, they were steamy, hot, and delicious; not unlike the master chief who taught us how to make them.

The high-class banquet in a Beijing courtyard, especially the yummy mashed yam!

A table FULL of delicious dishes for only 300 yuan at Guolin, the “home-styled” restaurant, after a day of skiing.

Fruit fest:
Big grapefruits: These are at least 3 times bigger than the grapefruits in Australia (think James’ head XP), with lemon-coloured skin (which is at least 2cm thick!), and tastes similar to normal grapefruits.

“Fragrant” melon: These used to be only found in my mother’s hometown in summer, so I was extremely excited to find them in Beijing supermarkets in winter! They are slightly bigger than a fist, similar to a honeydew, and have a slightly unusual sweet smell.

Chinese crispy dates: Red skin with green flesh, these are sweet, crispy and refreshing. One of my favourite winter treats!

Pomegranates: these look paler in skin and in flesh, but are actually sweet. Each pomegranate seed is bigger and juicier in flesh than the ones in Australia/England (according to James, since I haven’t had enough pomegranates here to tell the difference...)

Dragonfruit: what more can I say: we love dragonfruits as we love fruits.

Watermelon with yellow flesh: I haven’t had them before!

“Huojing” persimmons: these are tiny (1/4 of the size of normal persimmons), very soft, and its skin is paper-thin. Best of all, you can peel all of the skin in one go, and you’re left with only the flesh, sweet, fragrant, soft and simply wonderful.

Mandarins: mandarins are, of course, everywhere in winter, with always too many varieties that I never remember what each tastes like.

A special type of mandarin/orange cross: it’s green in colour, spherical in shape but much smaller than an orange in size; its skin is very thin, and its flesh is somewhat lemon-coloured. It is sweet and sour, while cool and crisp in texture. Hmmmm...

Durian (+durian candy): James’ favourite. Enough said. 

Coconut disguised as “Tibetan sacred fruit”! Their husks were polished and painted in maroon colour; and of course, found in Tibetan highlands ;)

Snack attack:
Street-made pancakes with egg, spring onion and sauce. Made on the spot, hot and tasty.

Street-roasted sweet potatos. That plus the sun on my back on a cold winter day used to be my definition of happiness. Now also plus James. :P

Cucumber flavoured chips (and mango flavoured, blueberry flavoured, lychee flavoured and kiwifruit flavoured types too!)

Rock sugar glazed hawthorn fruit. 糖葫芦, the sweet, tasty memory of Beijing.

Crystallised kiwifruits, pineapples, various plums, cantaloups, ginger *gasp*

A sweets bakery in Xian, making biscuits with glutinous pumpkin in the middle and walnut cookies.

BBQ gluten on a stick! Oh how I should give my mice these...

Deep fried chou tofu. :D

Jiu Men Xiao Chi: a “restaurant” full of snackfood stalls. We had deep fried starch sausage with ginger sauce (soooo nice!), “soy juice” – which is more or less a type of rancid soymilk, pea paste cakes (James please don’t say “pea yellow” even though that IS the literal translation of the name...), various pancakes, glutinous sweets, red date juice...

Powered, just-add-water cup milk tea with “Nata de coco” (a harder type of jelly made from coconut)

Many, many, many bubble-tea type of drinks and all-you-can-drink for 18yuan (<$3). Plus wireless (perhaps that’s a snack too?...)

Homemade cake using a electronic pressure cooker!

“Hong Kong Honeymoon Dessert” – better known as “Manji” in mandarin, has opened 2 branches in Beijing. Insanely packed with people, its desserts were pricey but very nice. Ask James about its mango sago (this is what he says on Skype: enlightened0ne: yumyumyumyumyum <- he had 2! Plus a durian ice-cream).

A Taiwanese bubble-tea place which also specialises in the finest “snow shavings” I have seen. It was as fluffy as fairyfloss, and melts at the instant that it touches the mouth. Gentle and soft, but full of sweet surprises. Plus low fat (since it’s just ice shavings XP)!

Homemade milkshake using a banana, milk, yoghurt drink and peach juice in a soymilk maker!

Lots, lots of interesting yoghurts with/without fruity bits.

Lots, lots of yoghurty drinks in bags.

Lots, lots of ice-creams.

“The last dessert”: 2 beautifully presented Haagen-Daaz drinks at the airport, on the day James went back to England. Awww.