I am obviously obsessed with pork. I never got why they called it “the other white meat” because people who prefer chicken seriously need to have their heads examined. In China, the pig is taken pretty seriously. Beef is niu rou (牛肉), or cow meat, chicken ji rou (鸡肉) or chicken meat, but pork? Usually just rou (肉) – as the default Meat (with a capital M) of choice. As I’ve previously documented (blog post here), the Shanghainese know how to fry up a fine piece of pig, but to me, nothing brings out the flavor and porky potential like Cantonese roast pork (烧肉 shao rou, or siu yuk in Cantonese).… READ MORE | 8 Comments
You are currently browsing jen’s articles.
Tags: COOK, pork, roast pork
Most noodles in Beijing run from 6-15 kuai in the small mian dians. If you want to go fancier and hand over a few more kuai, you can get specialty noodles made from unusual ingredients, or double or trip up on the meat. To go even more exotic, a bowl of Japanese ramen would bring you to 20-50 kuai. But one of the most enjoyable, and indubitably the most pricey bowl of zhajiang mian I’ve had in China was at Xiaolumian up in Beigou village by the Mutianyu Great Wall. It’s an adorable old Chinese village house, with a little outdoor terrace where you can see the Great Wall in the distance and smell the lavender growing in their gardens (lavendar! in China! wonderful). … READ MORE | 2 Comments
Tags: EAT, noodles, zhajiang mian
“Enjoy yourself in Beijing traditional snacks” reads the wall-sized sign next to the modest doorway hiding the courtyard of Jiumen xiaochi (九门小吃). In a little hutong off of the quieter end of Houhai is this treasure trove for those seeking old-school Beijing street snacks. Wangfujing is the famous, bustling, and sickeningly touristy “street food” alley, selling row upon row of deep-fried scorpions on a stick, and other assorted weird looking goodies that neither locals, nor tourists, really want to eat. However, I suppose it makes for a good photo opp.
The Jiumen hutong complex is made up of the street food vendors that were relocated from their old location near Qianmen near Tiananmen, and the recessed entryway… READ MORE | 8 Comments
Shanghai. It’s a place most Beijingers love to hate. The antithesis of Beijing, with its European flavor, narrow sycamore-dotted lanes, and a population inexplicably always in a mad rush. This last trip however, I’ve decided to give in to its charms and give up the mockery to embrace Shanghai – well, at least for a long weekend. It was a gluttonous weekend, where I thoroughly indulged in French dinners (crusty baguettes! real butter! fresh-preshed olive oil!) and burritos (thus far the best I’ve had in China), but it was the first meal of this eating marathon that I count as the food discovery of this journey. Triple-fried porkchop with fried glutinous rice cake (排骨年糕).… READ MORE | 7 Comments
What is it about the combination of sweet and sour that is so remarkably appealing? I’ll admit that there is no flavor combination that I love quite as much as that tangy sweetness. I’m one of those people that asks for extra Chicken McNugget sweet and sour sauce to swab my fries in. Hell, I even did that after McDonald’s started charging for it (no charge in China though – hurray!). While Chinese food is not exactly swimming in sweet and sour dishes the way Panda Express wants you to believe (i.e. all sweet and sour pork, lemon chicken/beef, orange beef/chicken, General Tso’s chicken, etc., etc.), it’s still to be found. For instance, Kung Pao chicken (gongbaojiding 宫爆鸡丁) is a delicious mix of sweet and sour with the addition of a little hot and spicy.… READ MORE | 6 Comments
After my Ode To Vinegar post detailing the sour cold dishes at DaGui (大贵), I shall now move onto some hot, vinegar-free but still delicious dishes. Guizhou cuisine is not at all popular outside of China – in fact I’ve never seen these dishes outside of China, but Guizhou borders Sichuan, and the cuisine often combines Sichuanese spiciness with the sourness enjoyed by the many minority groups living in this province. There are many tasty dishes, but instead of talking about the more well-known Guizhou specialties, such as sour fish soup (酸汤鱼) or the insanely delicious but less unique, such as stir-fried-deep-fried eggplant (香菜茄子), I’ll chat up the dishes I find most pleasing and surprising in flavors.… READ MORE | 1 Comment
Tags: beijing, Dagui, Guizhou, restaurant
Hello, magical peanuts. In my pre-Beijing existence, I was never really fond of the peanut. If I felt a nut craving, the stores were stocked with an infinite variation of other nuts – smoked almonds, candied cashews, and the oh-so-buttery chocolate-covered macadamias. However, despite its American heritage, the Chinese love peanuts, and most restaurants have some variation as appetizers, and now, I’m a convert. They are just so damn good. (So good, in fact, that we’ve decided to recreate a bunch of peanut recipes for our next project. But I digress.)
The vinegar peanuts at Dagui (大贵) sparked my new-found adoration for the humble peanut, and I’ve become a devotee of this small Guizhou restaurant tucked inside the hutongs of old Beijing. There are easily a dozen great dishes here, but this post is dedicated to cold, vinegary appetizers (凉菜), which epitomize the winning combination of spicy-sourness that is the key note of Guizhou cuisine.… READ MORE | 8 Comments
Tags: beijing, cucumbers, Dagui, noodles, peanuts, restaurant, tofu, vinegar
On to the second part of my Chinese New Year feast – the big plate of food. Dapancai (大盘菜) originates from southern Guangzhou province. Because Hong Kong was historically part of Guangdong, and because of relative geographic proximity, the dish is also popular in HK. Dapancai is more of a ritual, than a dish per se: in small rural villages, where there were no large restaurants in which to celebrate New Years, villagers came up with this dish as a way to have a potluck feast. Each family prepares one dish – and in China as elsewhere, there is always has one signature dish that the chief cook is most proud of – and the village then gathers together, each family bringing their special dish, which are arranged in a communal massive bowl, or plate, or pot. A potluck in one bowl.… READ MORE
Tags: chinese new year, dapancai, hong kong
Yusheng (鱼生) is a Chaozhou appetizer eaten during Chinese New Year among the Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese. It’s been part of my family’s New Year feast ever since my parents moved to Malaysia eight years ago, and I’m unreasonably fond of it. It’s not exactly gourmet food – a salad consisting of a variety of shredded vegetables (usually lettuce, pickled carrots, turnips, peppers, ginger and other unidentified oddly-colored vegetables), sprinkled with peanuts and crispy deep-fried wonton bits, and topped with slices of raw fish. You can get a great detailed recipe here. It’s then drenched in a dressing based on plum sauce and all family members join in to toss the salad using their chopsticks. … READ MORE | 8 Comments
It’s Chinese New Year, and I’ve left the bitter cold of Beijing to pass the holidays on warmer shores. First stop, Kuala Lumpur, then off to Borneo. Malaysia’s population is a true hodgepodge of races, and the Chinese (mostly southern Chinese) make up approximately a third of the population. No surprise, then, that the Chinese food here is quite excellent. Some food is, in fact, superior to that found in mainland China, Hong Kong, or even Vancouver (recently declared by Conde Nast’s Traveler as home to the best Chinese food in the world). I am talking duck here. The roast duck (shaoya 烧鸭) usually associated with Cantonese cuisine is unlike the famous Peking duck (kaoya 烤鸭)… READ MORE | 2 Comments
Tags: EAT, malaysia, roast duck, street food