liuzhou
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My (Chinese) mother-in-law thought I was insane buying Thai rice as it is considerably more expensive than the local Chinese stuff.
When my wife and I had to return to the UK for a few months, we gave her what was left - about 5 kilos. I could see her trying to look disapproving, but she couldn't hide her pleasure.
She still won't buy it herself, though.
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Commiserations Peter.
I am holding a two minute silence.
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Yes Peter, pomelo is very popular here. I can't think why. 99% of the time they are very dry and it takes dynamite to open the things.
The pomelo farm employs little old ladies whose sole job is to open them. They get quite adept at the task.
The green coin things are the Ai Ba Ba which I mentioned in my last post.
The steamed green things are called Ai Ba Ba and are made from sticky rice and Chinese mugwort. They are popular at Qing Ming (or Tomb Sweeping Festival) and are sometimes called Qing Ming Ba (Qingming cakes). -
or is that pomelo? I’m used to pomelo being green
It is indeed a pomelo. They are usually yellow to yellowish-green here. There is a pomelo farm on the outskirts of Liuzhou. You pay an entrance fee and can pick your own. The only catch is that you can't take them away. They have to be eaten on-site. How much pomelo can you eat?
This had been billed as “Bing Shuan beer” the local “best”. I’m not certain what was meant by this term. Is it Liquan’s premium brand? And what exactly causes this to be labled premium?Liquan Bing Shuang (Ice Beer - bing is ice, shuang means clear) is one of Liquan's premium beers. Why? Because they say so.
Common Liquan beer sells for around ¥3 in every corner shop (minus 4 mao refund on returned bottles). Restaurants and upscale bars found that no one was willing to pay any more than that and so, they stopped stocking Liquan and went for beers they could sell with a higher markup. Liquan were losing out.
There was a fashion a few years ago for 'ice-beers' and so, Liquan launched Bing Shuang, priced it a little too high for the common guy in the street, but appealing to the bar crowd. They also sold it in a clear bottle to differentiate from the regular stuff. Whether it tastes better or not is neither here nor there. The point is to show that you can afford it.
Personally, I prefer the ¥3 stuff, but then I'm a cheapskate!
She had a selection of steamed green things, and what looked like turnips, too (anyone want to jump in here?).
The steamed green things are called Ai Ba Ba and are made from sticky rice and Chinese mugwort. They are popular at Qing Ming (or Tomb Sweeping Festival) and are sometimes called Qing Ming Ba (Qingming cakes).
The 'turnips' are, in fact, taro.
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could it be the perennial favourite in Hong Kong which is the highly prized yellow chicken, as opposed to normal old chicken??
That crossed my mind, but the 'yellow' is modifying 'braised' not 'chicken' - i.e yellow -braised chicken rather than braised yellow chicken - and anyway it is black chicken which is prized around here!
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what's a yellow braised chicken?
No idea! But I will be in Guilin next weekend. I'll go try it for you and report back!
I think it might just be to differentiate from "red-braised" which involves using soy sauce. But that's very much a guess.
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I tried translating the sign with the menu based upon my limited knowledge of characters, and a guidebook that had some food items. I believe, given enough time (like five years) I could have managed to order an appropriate meal. (Anybody that’s interested, please let me know what they’re offering!)
It is a Hot Pot menu
Column one.
Fragrant Dog
Dry Fried Donkey
Boiled Donkey
Dry Fried Mutton
Boiled Mutton
Yellow Braised Chicken
Boiled Chicken
Sizzling Plate (Doesn't specify what is on the plate!)
Column 2
Beer Duck
Chestnut Duck
Chestnut Chicken
Snails and Chicken
Beer Fish
Delicious Tofu and Fish
Hot and Sour Fish Head
Hot and Sour "Hehua" Fish (sorry, I don't know the English for "Hehua".
There is then a list of Li River Fish, most of which I don't know the English for. I'm not a fish linguist!
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Shame you didn't get to try the bee pupae. They are pretty tasteless in themselves, but fried with a bit of chili they take on the texture of popcorn. So chili popcorn.
Bamboo rat isn't bad either.
For good snails you should have hopped on a bus and come to Liuzhou for the day! They are the local speciality (And are never served gritty!). Our most famous dish is 螺蛳粉 (luosifen) which is spicy rice noodles in a snail soup. Served everywhere for next to nothing.
Snake isn't cheap but it is my favourite. A friend who is a restaurateur invites me about once a year to a snake feast near Guilin. Snake soup, various fried snakes and the best, smoked snake.
Liquan do a few different beers. I'm not keen on that one. But, yes it's cold and wet in the heat.
Thanks again for a great read.
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Sichuan sauce (what is the proper name for that stuff?)
Do you mean Dou Ban Jiang, usually transalted as Chili Bean Sauce?
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oops. double posting
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and a bottle of Pearl River draft beer (Jiang Zhu). Now, I ask you, what was the Pearl River doing up here? This turned out to be a Guangzhou brewery that was muscling into the area.
It's Zhujiang and is available all over China. Ten years ago, I drank it regularly in Hunan.
They are the third largest in China and are also now in Canada.
Their rather noisy website is here.
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Peter,
I live in China and my local market, which I visit almost every day, is not so very different from the one you so excellently pictured and described, but I still enjoyed.
Your tale is getting closer to me. Here in Guangxi, we are geographically between Sichuan and Hunan to the west and north, but also Guangdong to the south. And the local food reflects these two very different influences.
The dishes in the last lot of pictures - Fish Flavoured Cucumber, Sizzling Beef etc, are available in almost every restaurant here. Water Boiled Pork is a bit unusual, though. Shui Zhu Niu Rou, Water Boiled Beef is much more common.
I know that you got to Guilin which is so near to me that the two cities are usually combined in terms of dialect and food style (Gui-Liu).
Can't wait to read what you think. And see the pictures. Thank you so much for all your entries.
One thing we didn’t come across was a comfortable bar.Well, that's China (on the whole.)
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The only country that I think comes close to Xian would be Mongolia, and you'd still have to go through the Xinjiang region to get there.
Some strange ideas about Chinese geography appearing here.
Mongolia is directly north of Xi'an. Xinjiang is in the far west. Totally wrong direction!
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xi'an is near the north korean border
Xi'an is nowhere near the North Korean border! It is more than 2,000 km away.
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it turns out that Han’s – while local – is owned by the Tsingtao empire.
And Tsingtao in turn is 27% owned by the American company, Anheuser-Busch, one the world's largest brewing companies. Their tendrils really are everywhere.
Anyway, I really enjoyed your latest episode, as usual. The first city in China that I really knew was Xi'an and I lived for a year very near to the South Gate.
It was a long time ago, you brought back lots of memories. I still think it is one of the best places to eat in China.
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it turns out that Han’s – while local – is owned by the Tsingtao empire.
And Tsingtao in turn is 27% owned by the American company, Anheuser-Busch, one the world's largest brewing companies. Their tendrils really are everywhere.
Anyway, I really enjoyed your latest episode, as usual. The first city in China that I really knew was Xi'an and I lived for a year very near to the South Gate.
It was a long time ago, you brought back lots of memories. I still think it is one of the best places to eat in China.
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I don't make joong.
Neither do I. But, I have seen many people (including my mother-in-law) do so using pressure cookers.
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I can't quite make out the first character. Is it the Jing in Beijing? If it is, then it's Jing Wei Mian Da Wang, which would be Beijing Taste Noodle King in English.
I think. I'm not a very reliable translator.
It is indeed, 京 the jing of Beijing. Your translation is perfect.
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I've never seen lentils here and none of my Chinese friends know what they are. Garbanzo beans (chick peas) are only available canned in the local 'foreign food' store.
Red kidney beans are widely available.
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we were told that Apple Macintosh computers couldn't connect to the internet in Guangxi Province.
Yangshuo's in Guangxi, so write that off, too.
They were talking nonsense. They just didn't know what they were doing. Of course you can connect Apples to the internet in Guangxi. I've been doing so for nearly a decade!
But well done. Can't wait to read about your Guilin eating.
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Kicap in Malay means soy sauce
Whether it came from Chinese or Malay,the original meaning was 'fish sauce'. My own opinion is that it was introduced into English from Malay, but Malay took it from Chinese. Borrowings are often indirect and meanings change.
Which is what makes etymology interesting.
See here.
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The origin of the word 'ketchup' or 'catsup' is probably the most disputed in all of etymology. (Although , it is generally agreed to be Asian. Malay has a good claim.)
However, every supermarket and small store round this part of China carries the stuff. So someone is using it. Even my very traditional mother-in-law has a bottle on the shelf.
(The tomato is native to America, along with other 'Chinese' goodies such as the chilli. Hard to imagine, but not that long ago Sichuan and Hunan had no chillies.)
Edit: I was in my local supermarket this afternoon and checked out the ketchup. Not only do they have it; they have 8 competing brands.
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Soups are bad for your blood pressure...
Not as bad as reports like this!
A load of ignorant, patronising, pseudo-scientific codswallop.
Ma Po (Hunan) Tofuif... ... it comes without the pork which some restaurants add.
Are they saying some restaurants don't add pork? Sue them!
(MaPo Tofu - Hunan?)
Their assumption that deep fried is worse than stir fried is also nonsense. Deep fried foods can have less fat than stir fried.
GRRRRRRRRRR!
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I'm not sure that you win the laziness stakes, I send my wife to the local supermarket, where the woman on the fish counter does the cutting and scoring business to the fresh squid. I sit at home and wait.
Scotch Eggs
in United Kingdom & Ireland: Cooking & Baking
Posted · Edited by liuzhou (log)
If anyone can give me a recipe for making Scotch Eggs from scratch, I will love you long time!
All the recipes I looked at via Google said to use various kinds of sausage meat. I don't have access to regular Western sausage meat. I live up a mountain in the middle of nowhere in Asia (seriously!).
Eggs, pork and most primary ingredients are available.