So I have been contemplating for a while how to write this post, essentially how to structure it and what I want to say beyond the fact that I fell in love with the food in China. This I had expected, but I really didn’t expect to be so mesmerised by it.
I am sorry for how unstructured this will be; its more a splurge of my thoughts and possibly way too long for someone to want to read till the end, but even if you don’t read it all, the pictures are worth a scroll.
Thoughts before I left
I grew up eating a lot of amazing Chinese food made by my extraodinary and crazy talented nani (grandma), obviously it was altered to suit our palates but the great thing is I never grew up believing takeaways were really what food should taste like. I am not a picky eater and want to try as many things as possible, so as I grew up I learned a lot more about the different types of Chinese food, the different regions and learned to cook some myself.
Going to China I was overly excited by the amount of noodles I would be able to physically digest within the space of a month, slightly anxious about the fact that I eat halal meat, and that may inhibit me from trying a lot of the food, but either way immensely excited.
First Impressions
One of the first dinners we had was the buffet below. There were lots of great little dishes, each with a great amount of flavour and some with a solid amount of spice. A very promising start.
The mushrooms were a firm favourite and something I knew I would eat a lot over the trip. The pickled potatoes too! I was very much in my happy place.
The next best thing I had were these soft pillow like dumplings (Baozi). There were two different types that I tried.
One with a mushroom and veg filling, and the other with shrimps.
Dumplings are served with a side of soy, vinegar and a crushed chilli sauce (which I swore by for the rest of the trip).
I don’t think I can say much beyond the fact that I had way too many to count and warm soy milk was a great accompaniment.
Streetfood
(potato pancake/ sandwich)
(warm sweet soya milk)
Ah I almost dread this, because how can I possibly put down how I felt about all the Beijing street food under one heading.
Near where I was staying there was a small community. Through which you would have to pass everyday in order to get to and from the subway station. This isn’t something I am complaining about at all, instead feel very lucky to have lived near such a vibrant space.
Stir Fry Rice/Noodle
This is in my list of Top 3 stir fry rice that I have ever had. It was literally just what the name is (obviously with an extra helping of their amazing chilli sauce). The lady by the end of the trip had started to recognise me and without me asking would put some chilli sauce in an extra bag for me to take, I miss her.
Stick Food
This man sold all things on a stick, grilled on your request, slathered in sauce. Vegetables on a stick have never ever tasted so good. The mushrooms were so dripping with flavour and ofocourse the white baby aubergines too.
Jianbing
This is as Beijing as a street food gets. A pancake batter is poured over a hot flat surface shaped into a circle using a wooden spatula. Once it starts to cook, its carefully flipped over, like a crepe.
Then a wonderful dark brown sauce is slathered over it, what is in it – I have no damn clue. Then some spice mix and seeds sprinkled over. The vendor will then ask you whether you would like chilli sauce, at which point I would in broken mime language indicate that I would like a lot more, at which point they look at you first very confused and with a shake of a head, they add more. Obviously if you eat meat, you can add in a piece of cooked chicken or a mystery meat frankfurter but neither of those I ate. Then its sprinkled with onions, coriander and red onions (ask for extra – I love onions more than most things in life).
Then comes the last stage of folding it all up, cutting it up in two and handing it to you in a plastic bag. Now every street vendor makes it differently, the ones who use premade pancake batter aren’t so great in my opinion but this lady made it better than anyone else.
This is one of the best things I have eaten in my life. Okay so this is an odd description, but barewith, if you have had a spicy Chana Chaat before then you will love this because it sort of tastes like a spicy Chinese Chat in a pancake. I am not sure why someone hasn’t brought these over to the UK and why we haven’t got a pop up food cart doing one. Saying that the food cart will probably charge £8 for one or something, rather than the 70p I paid there for it.
Here is me filming an inadequate video of her making it. I miss you Jianbing, I miss you a lot.
Noodle Salad
Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of this. But on this stall, you could get a cold noodle salad made with a bunch of sauces, which once again if you know whats in them, then what’s the point of street food. The noodles are flipped around with some thinly sliced cucumbers and then tossed in a small plastic box and handed over.
Never had a noodle salad like that and never will.
All the Other food!
There was a lot more on this tiny street: freshly grilled oysters with garlic, chilli and noodles, an array of grilled meats, a lady with an array of fresh pickles everyday and other things which honestly I couldn’t try because of my lack of Mandarin and knowledge of how to make clear I can’t eat meat.
China's version of a lassi
A breakfast spring onion pancake
Halal food
Fear not, I ate plenty of Halal meat while I was there. Personally this wasn’t something I had expected but there were so many halal restaurants and shops, so Chinese food with mutton, beef, chicken and lamb, all was tried!
Just at the end of this market was a massive restaurant owned by Chinese Muslims from Northern China where there was a lot of meat. But if I am honest the fish and vegetarian options were in such plentiful that I never truly craved meat at all.
A few Dinners..
I want to write about all my meals but I know that’s boring to read and also I didn’t take a picture of everything because truly yes capturing it was important but I wanted to enjoy being present in China.
Hotpot
I have been lucky enough to travel the world and make a bunch of great friends. So when one of my Chinese friends who I met while studying in Germany said she was in Beijing for a day, we decided to meet up impromptu and went to a Muslim Hotpot restaurant in the Niujie district.
This was cool, very cool.
The picture below tells a lot. You have a massive hot pot in middle in which you cook the meat yourself before dipping it in in an array of chilli, peanut and soy sauce.
This was one of oldest Hotpot restaurants in China and yeh I am just glad I got to go.
Dinner in Shenyang
Okay so this was handsdown some of the best food I had in China. I went to stay with another awesome Chinese friend , Max and her family fed me A LOT over this weekend. Our first stop was at this restaurant, which they especially found for me and made sure it was halal so I could try all the meats.
So we had a broth with all the parts of a cow, all the weird and wonderful. It may put some people off but it was so soothing, simple and very effective.
Then I had some stir-fried Cow’s stomach in this spicy glaze.
Beef cooked in whole spices – lots of green peppercorn! Which is actually used in a lot of Chinese food and its much more pungent than its counterparts.
Some beautiful dumplings – some with shrimp and some with beef.
A sweet, stickly glazed chicken. Sweet and salty is not my thing but I gave in for this Chicken, it was pretty darn good.
I ate a lot at this meal, a lot and all of it food that I had never had before and who knows when I will get to have again.
K-BBQ
Okay so I don’t think I have had better beef ever. The beef here disintegrated in your mouth. The Kimchi, better than any I have had before. The broth was so smooth and simple yet it had so much depth. The Korean spice mix, I wanted to take in a bag with me and have on me at all times. Lets just say I feel like a very lucky person to have enjoyed this meal in a traditional Korean restaurants complete with wooden floor seating.
So the biggest thank you in the world to baby Maxine, her beautiful family and Sheldon for an amazing weekend, surplus love and some of the best food of my life.
I cooked a meal!
While I was Max, her mum bought this beautiful chunk of halal beef especially for me, then slow cooked it in the pressure cooker overnight and said I could make whatever I want with the next morning.
So I conjured up a spicy beef noodle dish which was approved!
Lunches
If only we could eat lunch in the UK like China. Even here I have never in my life bought a sandwich, firstly because I despise them and secondly it’s a waste of money – for me anyway.
So learning that in China lunch was an affair of noodles, rice and all things spice, I was very pleased. So I know I haven’t talked about noodles a lot, well that’s truly only because I had so many that I started to count them as part of my daily life and hardly documented them (+ bubble tea, which I dearly miss too).
So near my work, after a 10 minute in 40C heat, you would arrive at a wondrous land called Lucky Food Hall. For a whole month, not once were we bored by the surplus food options available to buy. The guys working there were super friendly and even though we possibly never understood what either of us said to each other, I was always given extra chilli sauce.
There was places to get noodle soups, stir-fry’s, canteen style mix and match trays, fried stuff, dumplings, tepanyaki, fresh hot pots and probably a lot more which I just never understood.
Yes, there was no Pret and thank the Lord for that. Love you Lucky Food Hall, I will keep my food card safe incase we ever meet again.
And so..
There is food everywhere, everywhere. The Malls are full of restaurants; the streets are pouring with food. Life seems to revolve around it and actually that’s the case in any country where the food is great. Why shouldn’t it?
I can’t say that the above is even a small summary of my love for all the food I was fortunate enough to try in China, but just a few thoughts I could type up.
Heres a collection of lots of random food that I didn't include elsewhere.
(The meal we were served at a beautiful cottage house before our trek on the great wall)
(A very awesome shaved ice desert)
(ricee)
I miss you baby Beijing.
End note: Bubba with cream cheese icing is one of the most beautiful things anyone can ever experience.
Shanzé