liuzhou

This steak was sold as "Silver Cod" but may or may not be Chilean Sea Bass or Patagonian toothfish. It's definitely fish. Fish nomenclature is a mess in both Chinese and English. Whatever it was, it was fried and served with chilli infused yuzu ponzu and garlic fried mushrooms with coriander leaf and Chinese chives.

Joe Bastianich, so called Italian restaurateur, pronounces espresso as 'expresso'.

Garlicky mushrooms (white button and shiitake) on toast.

then there are the best 咸海鸭蛋 (xián hǎi yā dàn), salted sea duck eggs. These come from Guangxi Beibu Gulf near the China-Vietnam border. A local specialty. Pretty they ain't, but rammed with flavour. Sold in boxes of nine or individually.

Black peanuts. Slightly larger and sweeter than regular peanuts.

The difference between salted duck eggs and salted chicken eggs is a lot more than just size and price. The flavour is different; the texture is different; the appearance is different. Salted chicken eggs are very much the poor cousins. Salted Duck Egg Salted Chicken Egg

I vaguely remember seeing them here once, then they disappeared days later. But hey, I'm a guy who only likes one flavour of crisps (not chips ffs) - a flavour that becomes harder and harder to find! Potato flavour!

Where? Certainly not here.

I may be the only person the planet who hasn't seen this before, but it did make me laugh.

Re: Bitter Melon Here is one favourite dish I didn't mention. The melons are sliced into chunks and cored then stuffed with a mix of ground pork and shiitake mushrooms. Spicing can be added to your preference. These are sold pre-prepared in supermarkets, but I make 'em myself to get the spicing as I like it. They are then either pan fried or steamed (on top of rice in the rice cooker) and here are the dried bitter melon slices sold for making 'bitter melon tea'.

I mostly see / eat them with congee but have also had them with various soupy noodle dishes (including luosifen). They are, of course, baked into mooncakes. I've had them in salads, too but in SE Asia; not China. China doesn't really do salads. I more often buy salted quail egs, which I recommend trying if you come across them. Salted Quail Eggs

Yes, your first image is the Chinese variety and the second the Indian. The drink you show, 王老吉 (wáng lǎo jí) is extremely popular here, but I don't find it in the least bitter - at least no more so than Coca Cola. What I am talking about is 'bitter nail tea', which is infinitely more bitter!

The trouble with discussing bitter melon's bitterness is that there are different varieties of the gourd and the different varieties vary in the bitterness stakes. I first ate it in India in the 1970s and found it to be almost impossibly bitter. I eat it regularly here in China (usually with pork and fermented black beans) and find it less bitter (although sometimes I hit on a super bitter renegade). I don't know which type you are getting. The most bitter thing I have consumed is probably 苦钉茶 (kǔ dīng chá) or bitter tea (not to be confused with 苦瓜茶 (kǔ guā chá) which is bitter melon tea, made by steeping dried bitter melon slices in hot water.) Real bittter tea is a shocker the first time you try it.

Almost. It's missing the traditional beer.

Toasted Cheese Cheddar on wholewheat with a little mustard and almost no Worcestershire sauce. Salt and pepper.

I only really pictured the river snails above. We also get and eat Sea Snails Sea snails with clams Land snails African White Jade Snails

Yes. Somewhat similar.

Mr Ramsay is a notorious chili wimp.

Snails are a feature of Liuzhou's cuisine in many ways. They are sold precooked in every supermarket. And uncooked in many markets and supermarkets. There are many small restaurants like this one where almost every dish on the menu features snails. Some examples from various places. Cooked snails from the local supermarket. Close up Cooked snails on the deli counter There is a braised tilapia under that load of snails etc. Snails I cooked More snails Extracted, raw snail meat in the supermarket. As you can see, the snails are usually heavily spiced. They are often paired with ducks' feet. Snail soup with ducks' feet

Indeed, that is probably the intended meaning. Unpeed was an obvious typo. Yes. See below. When luosifen is served with snails, the snails are cooked separately as you describe. I have never found then to be muddy More here

One 'picks' the meat from the shell round here with 'toothpicks' or if you are sensitive 'cocktail sticks', which are, of course, the same thing, all of which is irrelevant as there rarely are snails in the final dish. They are only used to make the stock. Like people use shrimp heads and shells to make stocks, but don't bung the boiled shrimp bits into their final dish. For the first and possibly last time I agree with Heidih!

Days later, I am now involved in an on-going Twitter discussion with the author of the article, moderated (sort of) by a mutual friend. No mention about the snails being 'peeled' or 'unpeeled' so far, thank the gods. The things you people get me into!

Indeed. I will share them with my dear friend J - who is also a 王 from Guangxi!

Mystery solved. I knew it was someone with the family name 王 (wáng) which means 'King' and that they were in Guangxi. Unfortunately, I know about 20 people called 王 in Guangxi. 90% of Chinese people share just 100 family names. 王 is the most common with around 100 million people holding that name! So I asked on WeChat, China's main social media and the culprit confessed.