Occasionally we get tired of the Tsinghua cafeteria and escape to a Shanxi 山西 noodle restaurant outside of the east gate of Tsinghua for a quick lunch. Mianxiang Bafang is bustling at lunch, and the menu spans a wide variety of Shanxi specialties, knife-cut noodles, liangcai, stir-fried dishes, and skewers. Although Shanxi cuisine is known for its million variations on noodles, especially those delightfully irregular and wonderfully chewy knife-cut noodles (daoxiao mian 刀削面), for a healthy lunch we like to order several cold vegetable dishes (liangcai 凉菜).
Packed with micro-vitamins ostensibly found in green-type foods, the liangcai are usually relatively light, making it the perfect break from a pork-grease heavy Beijing diet. (A sidenote. One morning we ate a baozi that dripped grease — as it should! — and lo and behold, the grease solidified on contact. It was white, tacky, and approximated the texture of lip balm. I don’t have enough experience with pure lard. Is it supposed to do that? Or did I consume recycled cooking oil? Or recycled motor oil? Oooo, I hope it was recycled cooking oil.) Most dressings for liangcai are made out of some combination of aged vinegar, droplets of sesame oil, soy sauce, and chili oil, oftentimes sprinkled with a little salt. In various ratios and pairings, these flavors become so delicious that, between the two of us, we can scarf down four little plates of gem-like vegetables.
Jen likes the vaguely floral spinach with Chinese almonds (xingren bocai 杏仁菠菜); I like the sour-salty-sweet chrysanthemum leaf salad with peanuts (laocu haozigan 老醋蒿子杆). The eggplant is stuffed with a cilantro and chili mix, and there is a beautifully sliced pickled radish tower. We first discovered peanuts in a Shanxi ‘old vinegar’ reduction here (chencu huasheng 陈醋花生). To fill it out, we add an order of some stir-fried noodles or youpo chemian, or rice with millet mixed in. And, of course, the obligatory Coke.
Mianxiang 面香八方: No. 88 Shuangqing Road, Huayuan shiji Building, Floor 2, 204, Haidian 双清路88号华源世纪商务楼2层204
Walking around Shanghai streets at sunrise, I once turned a corner and saw two men digging a long pole into a sewer/gutter outside a restaurant and glopping gobs of white gunk into a bucket on their bike..I followed them as they moved on and watched them sell it to a street vendor who furtively crouched down to strain it into a cooking oil can…
Scarred me for life it did!
go reread your copy of the man who ate everything..he talks about the consistency of pure lard at room temperature (solid, but squishable) and makes it sound happy and enticing.
Or, you could ask any red state housewife age 50+. She’ll know.
also, I love how this picture clearly show a ray of light from heaven shining down on the veggies.
kate: just reading about your eyewitness account scarred me for life…
dan: i am sadly lacking in red state housewifely lore. and all vegetables should come with their own ray of light.
Looove the faux wicker hot sauce holder! Great photo!
Looove the faux wicker hot sauce holder! Great photo!