liuzhou

What a strange few days, The descending hoards were back. This is my favourite market street yesterday. It's the oldest market in the city, dating back to the Qing Dynasty and extends along a mile-long, narrow street and into side alleys off that. It was always a busy street market, with only one or two tiny restaurants / cafés for the foot weaary to rest their bones. Post-covid it hs been ridiculous. Many tiny restaurants have opened selling both malatang or luosifen, but never the two in the same store. Of course, the vain and vacuous have to visit. Now the locals struggle to buy their daily supplies there. Too many tosspots with cellphones. It's busier than The Great Wall of China was yesterday. It was near deserted by comparison.

Here is the ingredient section in my nearest malantang place, about five minutes from home. At the top are green vegetables and below that mushooms and non-green veg such as daikon radish, lotus root etc. Going down, next are various types on dried and fresh noodles. And on the lowest level are the proteins. I only photographed the proteins. The other shelves were being sprayed with mist and I prefer my phone dry. I've never eaten there. I'm kind of not into meats and vegetables that have been sliced and left exposed to every passer-by for hours on end,

Had to pass the Micky D's in the local mall today and spotted this. Angus truffle burgers? I think Angus might be the name of guy who cooks them and the truffles are 99.999999% likely to be Chinese truffles, which aren't worth the paper they're probably made out of. Utterly tasteless. Are truffle burgers available in non-Chinese McD stores?

Well, we all know Vegemite is a pale imitation of the real thing - Marmite! 🤣 Actually, I can source both here online. Not cheap though. I usually opt for Marmite out of habit, but when it's out of stock, will happily buy Vegemite. About a decade their was a really annoying Aussie veggie here for about a year. She complained about not being able to able to find Vegemite in China and I suggested the alternative. She screamed at me that she couldn't eat Marmite because "I'm a vegetarian!", her answer to every question. She point blank refused to accept that both are vegetarian. When, another time, she was going on about her eating disorder yet again, I mentioned that the Dalai Lama isn't vegetarian and she burst into hysterical tears. Even her boyfriend thought she was an idiot. Another friend, also Australian, a lovely, knowledgable and witty man just looked at her and quietly said "Calm down, mite." No, I didn't miss-spell 'mate'. Image from on-line advertising

I was thinking about this last night and thought I'd search the internet in Chinese to see if there were any recipes for making malatang at home. I found one, but it's utterly bizarre. I've translated it below, but literally to give you a flavour of the madness. But first let me say that luncheon meat and ham sausage are not exactly first choice of 'protein by any means and sesame sauce is certainly not "the soul of malatang" and milk? What is this person on⁈⁈ The ingredients list with some giving no amounts and the amounts listed without giving the ingredient are not my translation errors; they're straight from the original. Fairly normal for Chinese recipe writing. The only thing the recipe says that makes sense is the advice "Don't stick to this recipe." Malatang Ingredients 1 pack of instant noodles 100g of green bamboo shoots 3 shiitake mushrooms 100g of luncheon meat 100g ham sausage 100g fish balls 100g fish tofu 100g sesame sauce 15g light soy sauce 20g vinegar 20g sugar 10g salt 1 15g sesame oil and bean paste 35g hot pot base 50g green onion 50g, ginger slices 50g minced garlic minced coriander (can be omitted) 10g oil: 25g milk 300g Preparation Sesame sauce is also the soul of malatang, and it is also crucial. Mix all the spices in proportion. The consistency of the sesame sauce can be adjusted with the right amount of water. After all, each brand of sesame sauce is different. 2. Pour oil into the pan, pour in the green onion and ginger slices, and stir-fry a few times to taste. Tips: Malatang is a kind of food that can be put into the pot for everything, whatever you like, just add it casually. Don't stick to this recipe. Adding milk makes the taste smoother and less spicy. 3. Pour in the bean paste and hot pot base and stir-fry a few times, noting that the bean paste is easier to paste. After the hot pot base is melted, pour water, the amount of water depends on how many ingredients you have, and also depends on how big the pot is, which is more casual. 4. After boiling again, remove the residue and pour in the milk. 5. Then you have the exciting part, you can put your favourite ingredients, in line with the principle of meat, fish balls, vegetables, instant noodles, put the ingredients into the pot in turn. 6. After all the ingredients are cooked, take out and pour sesame sauce and minced garlic, and if you can eat coriander, you can sprinkle some chopped coriander. Of course, if you don't feel spicy enough, you can add some chilli oil. I dare you to try it!

I should hope not. https://www.mashed.com/459609/can-nutmeg-actually-make-you-hallucinate/

Had rather a large lunch so a light dinner. Mala shrimp with Chinese flat bread (馍 - mó) to soak up sauce. The shrimp were live fifteen minutes before I took this photograph.

Yes. Zhang Liang are international.. I've seen, but not visited the branch in London's Chinatown. However, they are in a bit of bother here in China after some branches were closed down after food safety violations. I've made hotpot just for me occasionally. Not for a while, though. Not very practical and anyway, the point of hotpot here is social more than gustatory, although the food can be great.

Not just yet, though. Here is a maybe a fifth of the line outside my favourite luosifen place (which I can't go to anymore) this noon. The malatang place round the corner had three customers.

Malatang and Mongolian hotpot are two quite different things. Malatang is based on Sichuan/Chongqing hotpot. Yes they are both hotpots, but that's all. The flavours are very different. Mala (麻辣 - má là), literally 'numbing and hot' refers to the combination of Sichuan peppercorn and chilli that is a signature feature of Sichuan cuisine.

Yes, I'd heard, not of that specific place, but that it was making an appearance internationally. It has turned up in London, too. The article you link to gives a good description of the dish and experience, but seems to imply that this is something new. It may be new to NYC, but it's been a thing for in China for at least twenty years here, just recently going viral. Same thing though with Luosifen. People though it was new, although it had been around for decades.. It went insane in 2020 with Covid. The inferior, packaged version became China's biggest seling "instant noodle" product overnight, then when all the restrictions were over the masses wanted to travel here to try the real thing. I get that. It's the ones who come not to like it and say so in their dumb videos that I don't get. By the way the translation of 楊國福 (yáng guó fú) they give as "Lucky Northern China" is nonsense. It's someone's name (in traditional characters). Probably male and born between 1966 and 1976.

Not a concept with which I'm familiar.

I had the same dish with friends today, but this time in a restaurant next door to my apartment block. Here is a poor cell phone shot of the dish being served. Enough chillies for ya⁈

Spanking Wine I took this picture almost 30 years ago in Hunan. I never posted this scan of the print before because I always hoped I'd see it again and get a better (digital) shot but it hasn't happened. Presumably they went out of business. Not enough alcoholic S&M fans in China?

Back in the Spring Festival (incorporating Chinese New Year), I moaned about 6 million puerile sensation seekers landing in Liuzhou over ten days to film themselves eating Liuzhou Luosifen in order to to post videos on anti-social media. The locals had to forego their favourite food and took to cowering under their beds to avoid these clowns lining up outside every shop which sells the local favourite (there are thousands of them). In my and most people’s favourite outlet, they were standing in line for six hours to eat some cheap noodles then complain to the world that it smells like rancid feet (not true) and is too spicy (ditto) They still turn up in their hundreds every weekend. Luosifen Line Today, May 1st 2024 marks the first day of a three day holiday all over China to mark International Labor Day. (Actually, it’s only a three day holiday but the Chinese count the weekend too, forgetting they don’t usually work that day anyway!) This morning I read some potentially wonderful news. It seems the vacuous and fatuous may be moving on to 麻辣烫 (má là tàng), Malatang! Malatang is available all over China including here, but it seems the sheep are latching on to one city in Gansu province, far from here. While I feel sorry for the poor people of 天水 (tiān shuǐ) Tianshui, literally Heavenly Water, an ancient city in north-eastern Gansu, I’ll be delighted if they all go! Why they want Tianshui’s version is a mystery. The article features a girl named Mao from Changsha, the capital of Hunan travelling all the way to Gansu to eat something sold all over her home city! Bucket list ticking gone insane. Perhaps she is from the same family as the Chairman, also a Hunannative from near Changsha. He wasn’t exactly stable in the mind, either. So, what is malatang, some of you ask. Well, it’s anything you want it to be, really. It’s a street food single serving of a Sichuan style hotpot. Hotpot for one. Sichuan and other hotpots biggest failing and attraction is that it is only suitable for a group meal. Four minimum. Eight to 12 for perfection. Decades ago, someone thought it would be good if people could have a quick version just for themselves and malatang was born. Malatang - Image from Meituan, China's largest food home delivery app Basically you choose the ingredients you prefer among the stall’s offerings; meats, vegetables, tofu, noodles, meatballs, fish balls, etc and the whole mess is boiled in a spicy broth and there you go. Hotpot for one. The ingredients are usually on skewers and, just as in most hotpot places, you are charged by the skewer. Obviously the noodles aren’t on skewers – don’t be silly. The article I read has complaints that people are now being charged by weight instead, but I don’t see that necessarily being a problem – the vendors judged how much to put on the skewers by weigh anyway! Logic isn’t the sensation seekers greatest skill. What amuses me is that although malatang is hotpot for one, these jokers never hunt alone, but in packs negating the whole point of the dish. The article is here. Note: They mistranslate 烫 (tàng). It has many meanings, but 'boiled' isn't one of them. Try to scald, to burn (by scalding), to blanch (cooking), to heat (sth) up in hot water, to perm hair, to iron, scalding hot.

Stir-fried chicken with okra, scallions, garlic, gnger, chilli, Shaoxing wine and soy sauce. Rice.

For some reason, I read that as 'crystal meth' and thought that would definitely add something! I am looking forward to your trip!

How can noodles be "ever so chewy" and "al dente" at the same time? All the Lanzhou lamian I've eaten. and that's a lot. has been al dente; never "ever so chewy".

Indeed. There are also several YouTube tutorials. Making them is certainly not something I'm about to take up when I've got a pro five minutes away who sells me them for a pittance.

Well, if that was what you meant, and it wasn't clear, it would be unenforceable anyway.

There are two large groups of Muslims in China. The Uighur people of Xinjiang in the far west bordering the ‘stans’* and the 回族 (huí zú), Hui ethnicity, who mainly congregate in Ningxia in north·west China but can be found all over the country. There is a particularly large community in Xi’an. But almost every province has some presence. And, the Hui’s influence on Chinese and other cuisines has been immense yet they get little recognition. Wherever they go, like many emigrants, they take their culinary traditions with them and many open restaurants specialising in their food. Their staple diet is wheat rather than rice and noodles predominate. In keeping with their dietary laws, they do not eat the meat of pigs, dogs, horses, donkeys, mules, or beasts of prey. Pigeons are considered special and may only be eaten in certain religious situations. They do not eat blood, either. In fact, you should never even mention blood at the dinner table or in the kitchen. Also, joking about food is strictly forbidden. Their most famous dish, at least in China, is probably 兰州拉面 (lán zhōu lā miàn), Lanzhou hand-pulled noodles, most popularly ordered with with beef. Lanzhou is the capital of Gansu Province which neighbours Ningxia and also has a sizeable Hui population. The dish consists of wheaten hand-pulled noodles (拉面 – lā miàn) in a broth with beef and vegetables. It is a simple dish, yet difficult to get right; like Japanese ramen, the broth quality is crucial. The Japanese word ramen is borrowed from the Chinese ‘lamian’. Done properly, it is a delicious favourite everywhere. Most cities and large towns in China have Hui run Lanzhou Lamian restaurants. In this relatively small city where I live, there are around a dozen with the dish's name also being parat of the restaurant’s name. Many more sell it. The sign on the the rest aurant (centre) reads Muslim Lanzhou Lamian The dish wasn’t necessarily invented by a Hui person, but one Hui man, Ma Baozi, is credited with perfecting and standardising it in 1915. He famously said that a good bowl of Lamian should contain five colours: clearness in the broth, white in the radish, green in the coriander leaf / cilantro, red in the chili oil, and yellow in the noodles. Instant or quick-cook packets of Lanzhou Lamian available in the west are a no-go area for the Chinese! There are recipes online but I’ve never met anyone here who makes it themselves. It is certainly cheaper and probably better in one of the restaurants where it’s made by by people who have been making the noodles by hand, then preparing (and eating) the dish all their lives. It is also more fun as they usually pull the noodles in front of you which is entertaining to watch. The kitchen is open so you can see the noodles being pulled . Lanzhou Lamian The other food the Hui are most known for is their 肉串 (ròu chuàn), grilled mutton skewers (肉串儿 – ròu chuàn ér in Beijing dialect). These can be found in every city’s night food market and in restaurants. They are from Xinjiang and the Uighurs, but it was mainly the Hui who carried them across China. Cubes of mutton are interspersed with the sheep’s fat, preferably the tail fat, then grilled over charcoal while being sprinkled with a mix of powdered cumin seed and chilli. Follow your nose to find them! Rou chuan Although these two are the most popular, please don’t fall into the trap of thinking that’s it. Below is one half of the restaurant pictured above's menu. Here are just the noodle dishes in the Lanzhou Lamian restaurant near my home.. There are plenty more. Beef Hand Pulled Noodles - 牛肉拉面 niú ròu lā miàn Beef Hand Cut Noodles - 牛肉刀削面 niú ròu dāo xuē miàn - Egg Hand Cut Noodles - 鸡蛋刀削面 jī dàn dāo xuē miàn Green Vegetable Hand Pulled Noodles - 青菜拉面 qīng cài lā miàn Egg Hand Pulled Noodles - 鸡蛋拉面 jī dàn lā miàn Scallion Oil Soup Noodles - 葱油拌面 cōng yóu bàn miàn Extra Beef Hand Pulled Noodles - 加肉拉面 jiā ròu lā miàn Red Cooked Beef Noodles - 红烧牛肉面 hóng shāo niú ròu miàn Tomato and Egg Hand Pulled Noodles - 番茄鸡蛋拉面 fān qié jī dàn lā miàn Tomato and Egg Knife Cut Noodles - 番茄鸡蛋刀削面 fān qié jī dàn dāo xuē miàn Beef Fried Hand Pulled Noodles - 牛肉炒拉面 niú ròu chǎo lā miàn Egg Fried Hand Pulled Noodles - 鸡蛋炒拉面 jī dàn chǎo lā miàn Beef Fried Hand Cut Noodles - 牛肉炒刀削面 niú ròu chǎo dāo xuē miàn Egg Fried Hand Cut Noodles - 鸡蛋炒刀削面 jī dàn chǎo dāo xuē miàn Beef Fried Noodle Pieces - 牛肉炒面片 niú ròu chǎo miàn piàn Dried Beef Soup Noodles - 肉干拌面 niú ròu gān bàn miàn Beef Slices in Broth and Hand Torn Bread - 牛肉泡馍 niú ròu pào mò Mutton Slices in Broth and Hand Torn Bread - 羊肉泡馍 yáng ròu pào mò Xinjiang Mixed Soup Noodles - 新疆拌面 xīn jiāng bàn miàn Steamed Beef Dumplings - 牛肉水饺 niú ròu shuǐ jiǎo * Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

You said ""anywhere in the world". It isn't true for all the USA either, as others have pointed out.

Pan fried pork schnitzel with chips. There was some okra planned but I realised there was going to be no room on the plate, so shelved them. ... then dessert.

This is totally incorrect. In 2019, in the UK (somewhere in the world), the UK Supreme Court upheld non-compete clauses. Similar rulings have been made in many places.

I boil the noodles for one minute, drain then fry. The other stuff is fried first until almost done and then I add the boiled noodles. They have never stuck in th hundreds of times I've done something similar.