liuzhou

Road kill grouse were a staple in my family when I was a kid. There were a lot of suicidal grouse where I grew up in Scotland.

Last night, I was invited to a preview of a new restaurant owned by a friend of a friend. Basically, it is a simple 快餐 (kuài cān) or Chinese fast food restaurant. Simple stir fries for the working man or woman. However, this one has a gimmick. No chef! No cooks! Everything is cooked by this. It's a programmable robotic cooking machine with hundreds of recipes already installed, but which can be tweaked to the user's satisfaction. A couple of people were preparing ingredients which were then loaded into a tray at the top, the door closed and shortly later it 's ready to serve. We ate: Chicken with green and red bell peppers peppers and wood ear fungus. Mixed vegetables Soup Different chicken with bell peppers Stir fried cucumber Pork and Tofu Fried rice noodles Passion Fruit Wine The verdict. No thanks! The food was bland, underseasoned and boring, but then most fast food is. Bell peppers!! On the plus side, it wasn't greasy like so much of this food can be. We sent for a bowl of the local specialty from next door - Duck and snails in a spicy soup. Great stuff! Still, it was a fun and interesting experience, but not one to be repeated. I like my food to be cooked by someone with taste buds.

Bought a large pile of mixed dried wild mushrooms today. These will go in the emergency store. Oyster mushrooms, tea tree mushrooms, chanterelles, almond mushrooms, cèpes, cordycep militaris, morels and bamboo pith mushrooms. All foraged in Yunnan province.

Yes. That's typical. Horrible.

As far as I can make out, most of it is used as a dressing for revolting fruit salads - both regular and sweet versions. And slathered on "pizzas" and "sushi", both of which have been fashionable in recent times. I guess the regular one is the same as what you have there, but I've never been there, so can't be sure. Almost the only times I use mayo of any sort are with potato salad or tartar sauce, but I make my own and certainly don't sweeten it. The non-sweet Kewpie version does contain sugar according to the ingredient list.

We normally get both. I've never bought the toothpaste type and very rarely buy the jarred type. I think today is only the second time ever and I don't really know why I did! I always make my own.

The blue one reads "Kewpie Sweet Mayonnaise".

The Chinese is bigger! 😂

It tells you on the label. In English. 😁

I noticed today that Kewpie "mayo" is back in at least one store.

With coffee served in this.

@Kim Shook Very American Chinese! 😁🥢

Fried noodles with pork, mixed wild mushrooms, asparagus, garlic, ginger, chilli, Shaoxing wine, soy sauce and love.

I usually buy wild shrimp in the wet market where they come live and wriggling, so they are head and shell intact! The ones I ate today, I cleaned and shelled apart from tails. Heads and shells are making a stock right now. One of my local supermarkets also does live farmed shrimp, which I only buy if the wet market fails. Until recently that was rarely, but we live in strange times. Otherwise, it's possible to buy dead ones either cleaned, decapitated or fully intact apart from life. These may or may not have been frozen. Frozen are also available. I very seldom go there.

I know I cooked shrimp a couple of days ago (my memory isn't that bad), but today for the first time since January, I found my favourite large, live, wild shrimp again! Couldn't resist. Did in a Thai style red curry with asparagus, and Chinese chives.

Plenty in mine! Seriously though, imported foods are becoming difficult to find, for obvious reasons. While there is no shortage of locally produced (i.e. China) items, I cannot get my usual cheddar cheese (imported from Ireland) and I've noticed that Japanese Kewpie mayonaisse is gone (not that I ever buy it).

Yes. A very popular dish. 反沙芋头 (fǎn shā yù tóu). It's usually taro. I don't get it, either. Not normally served as a dessert, though. It just turns up at random with the other dishes at banquets.

Indeed, but Worcestershire Sauce is also popular in China, especially Shanghai. They even make their own and very good it is, too.

I cooked them for some young friends 20 years ago and they were baffled, but delighted. Although , they wanted to put sugar on them until I stopped them. But yes, shortly after that they became relatively common, led by KFC, then McD's. Western food in China is as strange as Chinese food in the west!

Damn! That cornvirus is spreading! As soon as I say I've never seen baby corn in China, look what turns up in the supermarket! Did I buy it? Don't be ridiculous! I'd rather mainline disinfectant .

Shrimp with black garlic and capers, seagrass and orzo.

Terrible picture; good breakfast. Wontons in soup with squash flowers.

No. But today China's production of corn is second only to the US and catching up. The fools love the stuff. That said, I have never seen baby corn here.

Fortunately, we are well supplied with yeast here. The Saf yeast people have a huge factory in Laibin, a city one hour south of here and China's largest domestic yeast producer, Angel has a plant right here in town. Unfortunately, my oven has died!