Real Chinese Food

When I say Chinese food, I mean it.

I don’t mean that stuff you get in the rest of the world like beef-and-broccoli or fortune cookies or General Tso’s chicken. No Panda Express. No Asian Super Buffet. We will heretofore refer to that stuff as “Chinese food.” I mean Chinese food that you buy in China that Chinese people would recognize and eat. Chinese food. No quotation marks.

Now, granted, the Chinese have some crazy stuff going on in the food department. Some of it is good, some of it is in my humble opinion just disgusting. But they think cheese is disgusting, so we’ll call it even.

I didn’t eat all of the following things pictured. Why? Well, read on and I think you’ll see why.

Some things are just odd combinations of basic foods. The juxtaposition can be delicious.

Then again, the Chinese like to eat every part of every animal, so that can stretch my American concept of what’s edible and what’s not.

The Chinese also excel at taking something foreign and tweaking it, which results in strangely familiar items.

Open your mind.

Here we go!

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Haagen-Dazs isn’t just grocery store ice cream in China, it’s a whole dessert restaurant. The Chinese love a dessert restaurant, and one theory (according to a young single relative of mine) is that since there’s not a bar culture in China like in the USA or Europe, people need somewhere to go on a date or on an outing with friends. This brought about the rise of the dessert restaurant. Long live ice cream! They have regular scoops of ice cream, but they also build gigantic complicated desserts.

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This Shanghai noodle soup place has the ingredients in a cooler. You put whatever you want in a bowl, give it to the cook, and he cooks it all up for you. It’s so good! One of my favorite Shanghai meals.

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One day I had a vacation-overload meltdown and stayed in the hotel instead of going sightseeing. I missed breakfast, there was no coffee in the minibar, and the hotel restaurant did not open till later. I could not make myself understood with the room service people on the phone (why oh why didn’t I study Chinese more?!) and was considering crying, when there was a knock on the door. Room service had sent someone up to the room so I could point at the picture menu! A lovely young man brought back this delectable tray. I almost wept.

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Uighur snack. It tastes like a saltine ball.

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When the Chinese decide to do up a restaurant in cute Western style, they really go to town! This place was in Xi’an, near the Music Conservatory and our hotel. Chinese meals are almost all served family-style, but sometimes the American individual in me really wanted her own plate. This salad was heaven-sent.

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This breakfast burrito thing was hands-down my favorite Chinese food of all. The cook makes a crepe, cracks an egg on it, spreads magic sauce and chopped herbs, tops it with a crunchy fried dough stick, rolls it up, cuts it in half, and puts it in a plastic bag. Yes, with his bare hands. Yes, beside the dusty road. I ate the whole thing and did not die. Not even a hint of discomfort. In fact, my stomach was incredibly comforted and comfortable. Cleanliness is really overrated.

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Look at the size of those figs!

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After we visited the Panda Research Center in Chengdu, we took a walk around town and found this little gem. Yes, they make tea fertilized by panda poop. See why I said I didn’t eat everything I list here?

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This Shanghai restaurant is in a subway station. Truthfully, I’m not that crazy about Shanghainese food. It’s all pretty sweet, and there is a lot of fish. Fish is a rather personal food, I think. You need to be really sure about it before you dig in. However, this restaurant, a little hole-in-the-wall in the subway station, has just got delicious food. This meal cost $15 American, and fed three of us. It’s the closest thing to “Chinese food” that I ate in China. But it’s really Chinese food.  As a bonus, there is a cat that lives in the rafters! We could see her lolling around on the open dropped ceiling.

left to right: chow fun, hot soup dumplings (there’s hot soup and a meatball inside), steamed chicken, beef stew, stir fried eggs and bell peppers

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Geoduck soup. I just included this picture because I know a lot of you will be grossed out by the thought of geoduck anything. Here you go! It just tasted like pureed fish soup.

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This menu was in an airport restaurant. Between the old duck and the bacteria, I just lost my appetite. I had a Heineken and the emergency chocolate bar from my purse. Told you it would come in handy.

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Toast Box! The cutest restaurant ever! It’s a Singaporean chain that specializes in toast, eggs, and coffee. Also some noodle dishes, but I just had the toast, eggs, and coffee.

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The Chinese love to take something that people like and improve it. However, I think that Oreos are one of God’s greatest gifts to mankind, and they are therefore perfect. I did not eat these tampered-with atrocities. Flavors, left to right, are vanilla, strawberry, tiramisu, and raspberry-blueberry.

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This elaborate dish was delicious! It’s a piece of fried shrimp sitting on a piece of pineapple sitting on a shrimp chip, drizzled with mayonnaise. Just like stuffed-crust pizza, it’s a lot of a good thing without being too much.

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You can buy frogs in the market. So handy! Maybe next time.

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This meal came with a whole quail. The drumstick is thumb-sized! A thumb stick?

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So, what do you think? Which of these would you try? Have you tried any of them? Anything weirder?
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I welcome your thoughts!

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