Peter Green

My kid was asking about Canadian recipes. There's a good bit in the Star on the Toe. The Sourtoe (As a side note, when the 1980 incident happened, it was the major item of conversation in all of the Yukon bush camps.)

I just read this with my son, Scud. He's now interested in food reporting.

It looks like pickled green beans, chopped up. They're amazingly good. Here's an example (at right, obviously) from a Sichuan restaurant in LA: ← This is the great part of getting this stuff posted. I get answers! Thanks very much for this! And Kitchen Chick's article was good to read. She touches in something in a parallel thread Peppercorns in that the peppercorns outside of China never taste as numbing.

What a fun thread this is! ← As in Korea, noodles in Thailand are dishes with Sino-Thai origins. Traditional Thai (in the good old good old days) would be eaten with your hand. Fork and spoon were introduced much later, but the Thai will use the fork to push the food onto the spoon. You shouldn't be caught putting your fork in your mouth. Chopsticks are reserved for "Chinese food" which is noodles, although it's ingrained in the urban culture now. So, what does this have to do with Khun Phibun and phad Thai? Phibun's first government, in 1938, started off with a series of very pro-Thai (or xenophobically anti-Chinese) measures (depends on whose side your on). His second government - after the war - likewise was very anti-Chinese, with significant worries that an alienated urban Chinese populace (Bangkok in particular was becoming very sinicized by this point) would be a fifth-column for the Chinese communists. Hence, let's do some window dressing, and use phad Thai as a symbol of happy cooperation between the Thai and Chinese people? Cynical? Opportunistic? Khun Phibun? How could we suggest such things. (and no references to the current ex-prime minister, please) So, what does this have to do with the price of somtam in Nong Khai? There's something in both sides of the argument (take the middle path). Phad Thai is not a dish I would have as part of a meal. It's something I should order on the street, or in a food court. However, I like it, I'm a glutton, and so I would disdain such restrictions. Now, should you judge a Thai restaurant on the quality of its phad Thai? If I'm in Thailand, no. I judge a Thai restaurant on the quality of what it's supposed to do well. I go to some vendors specifically for their mee krob or for their somtam (or Hainan chicken rice). You judge them on what they're known for. But outside of Thailand, I don't think it's that unfair. When you go to a Thai restaurant in the US, Canada, Europe, or Egypt, you're looking for that bit of comfort you associate with the country and its cuisine. For that matter, the ex-prime minister (shhh!) in pushing the export of Thai cuisine, did insist that phad Thai was a dish that had to be done well. Foreigners like it. Give them what they like, and let them be happy. What's wrong with "happy"? So, if I'm overseas and I stop in an American restaurant and the pork ribs aren't good (or if they're not pork, like in KL), I'll be unhappy. The restaurant may only have the ribs on their menu because its expected, but I expect them to do them well if they've got them there. It's part of the image they're selling. There, have I been incoherent enough? Like I said, this is a fun thread. P.S. - as it seems to be required, my reference is Wyatt, David Thailand: A Short History P.P.S. - yes, I have been to Thailand

Not just in diners in America, but overseas you'll find "American" restaurants that follow a very set menu of "steak" (I'm being kind), salads with iceberg lettuce, and usually nachos or some such equivalent. However, throw in my vote on the defence of the fortune cookie! I consider them one of the highlights of my meal, especially when they get innovative with the messages. And I'm sort of fond of the taste......

Day 9 – part 3 - A Spot of Dinner, and a Cuppa after Dinner was at the Han Ding Hot Pot on Qintai Lu, just up the road from the teahouse we were going to for the opera later on. Hot pot is one of those things you’re supposed to do when in Chengdu. Every part of Asia must have a version of this, but Chengdu was notorious for the quality of theirs; hot, burning, and intimately painful. But, it also came in a ying-yang version, with a mild broth countering the brute force of the chili. This meant that Serena could eat as well. Believe it or not, this was my first chance of the day to indulge in a beer. Snow is the local varietal. While lacking in head, it was pleasant enough, and maintained a good cloud of bubbles. I could work with this. Our dipping sauce came out. This consisted of a bowl of oil, with chopped garlic in the bottom. Into this was introduced a handful of coriander, some ginger, and some more garlic. Then the pot was settled into it’s place on the table and the fire started below. Is it just me, or does anyone else get nervous sitting around a pressurized canister of flammable gas that’s on fire beneath your legs? Java was becoming more comfortable with us once we started the order with beef tripe. Along with this we called in some udon noodles for Serena, enoki mushrooms, luohan bamboo shoots, pig throat, and Hang Ding’s housebrand meatballs, and their house beef (which Java said was particularly tender). The hot sauce is reasonably well loaded with chilis in the oil, the broth worked up from pig bones. The milder side is very mild, and very good, a fish and mushroom broth. We load some of the enokis in there, and let them get going. On the yang side, Java washes the tripe in the sauce, and then hands it out to each of us to dip into our own sauces before eating. While working the tripe, we add in some of the bamboo to give it time to cook while we’re busy. Then we move on to the beef, which really is very tender, that buttery consistency that they seem to do so well here. The pig neck isn’t what I was expecting. It was pale pink/white sheets, but, cooked in the thickening sauce, it was excellent in both texture and taste, coming across very clean. Java ordered some pumpkin pie. At this Serena got all excited. But “pumpkin pie” didn’t come as expected. What arrived were crisp fried pumpkin-flavoured glutinous rice cakes, that made a nice counter to the spices in the broth. (Serena still at them). We soldiered on, devouring the bamboo which had now cooked, and dropping in the meatballs into both sides. We were filling up, so I did what needed to be done. I ordered more food. I wanted some lotus root, as I was getting hooked on that crisp, clean texture it has. And the shrimp dumplings were recommended. And then there were the ox liver mushrooms. These really did look liverish. And not just any liver, but like the liver of a diseased, hepatitis victim who’d lived a hard life of alcohol abuse. These were great. And once I bit into the first one that was cooked, I was back with an old friend. These were very similar to the desert truffles I’d been eating back home. I asked Java about them, and she told me that they were found after the rains, when they would crack the surface of the ground. And, just like the desert truffles, they had a certain amount of earth still trapped in their folds that gave them a certain grittiness. The shrimp dumplings weren’t as expected; stubby cigarillos of shrimp rolled in a blanket of wrapper. But they tasted equally good when buried in the chilis or done up in the ying. All through this the sauces were thickening and developing their true natures; the ying becoming more comforting, and the yang getting angrier and more confrontational with our taste buds. Java recommended the dessert, and a young lady came out nearby to prep the table. She sprinkled a bit of flour down, then took her dough and twirled it out in the air, developing it as you would a pizza. Then she attached it to the surface and then coated like a crepe and topped with pineapple before folding it all over and frying it on the nearby pan (sorry, I wish I had better stills. But the video is fun). What we got were very crisp, thin, sweet fritters. We managed a couple of pieces before the boy had his wicked way with them. We were sated. The sauce was getting thick enough to stand a spoon up in it, and someone must have leaned over and made a mess of my setting when I wasn’t looking. Dinner in hand, we headed up the street. A Night At The Opera Our venue was the Shu Feng Ya Yun Teahouse, home of (you got it) the Shu Feng Ya Yun Operatic Circle. They’re one of the largest of the Sichuan groups operating, with an (interrupted) history going back over a hundred years. Okay, that sounds better than “early part of the 20th century” but still, it’s older than I am (although considerably livelier). After having seen the video and camera police in action in Beijing, I’d assumed that it wouldn’t be allowed to do any shooting at the theater. “Why wouldn’t you?” queried Java. “You’ve bought tickets. Of course you can take pictures.” So take pictures we did, along with the smattering of tourists in the place (although it was not overwhelmed with Westerners – a lot of the crowd seemed Japanese). This was fun for a voyeur like me. The dressing room was open to the public, and we were welcome to take shots as they developed their makeup and got their costumes ready. Being a teahouse, we had tea. The tea is the classical pour, delivered in a jet from a short distance. I’d seen this before in Korea, at a place called “Feel Like Throwing The Flowers” in Insadong, and was impressed by the accuracy with which they could hit the teacup. The same for here (although I did put my notebook and camera safely to the side). I’d watched a young lady earlier in the day on Jinma Lane practicing her draws and back pours (I was only admiring her technical form, I swear), and I appreciated better now her practice in what she’d been doing. Service was excellent, not only the tea pouring, but if you were cold they had housecoats for you to wear, and if you were aching a bit, then you could take in a massage as you watched. This was also my first exposure to the ear cleaning phenomenon. Yoonhi considered this, and then reconsidered once she saw the collection of hardware that was used. The show was fun, and the kids enjoyed it as well as us. Where Beijing is about large, heavily choreographed “shows”, this was vaudeville. A bit of this, a bit of that. We got a bit of music, an acrobatic precision tea pouring drill some opera proper - which appeared to be the Chinese equivalent of The Fighting Sullivans, a mother seeing her sons all go off to war with the Mongols. I like the subversiveness of much of the Opera. With a lot of the roots in the Qing Dynasty, with the Manchu in charge, the Han took every chance they could to tell stories of the valiant Han fighting the riffraff from the periphery – the Mongols or Wei making good proxies for the Manchurians. And so more music, excellent shadow puppets, the Chinese equivalent of a Honeymooners skit (but a lot more flexible than Jackie Gleason), and, what we’d really come to see, the Masks. I’d seen the classic film The King of Masks, and one of my prior business trips in Beijing had included a show that had a piece by a Sichuanese mask artist. I was impressed then, but here the finale given over to it, and it was impressive. They’ll run through a series of quick changes with their masks, changing in an instant with a slight distraction of a fan in hand or a burst of flame. But then they would come into the audience and change just as they’d shake your hand. And at the end they would go to bare face, then quickly convert back to a mask. Now that’s entertainment. This was one of our longest days so far. All of us were tired, but we were still looking forward to the next day. Next: Shu' 'nuff

I got the same feeling comparing what I had in Chengdu with what I bought in Calgary and elsewhere. What we're getting has lost a lot of the brutality that the original peppercorns had. I'm not certain why. It may be that they've just been kept too long, or else we're not getting exactly the same ones they use over there. One good little peppercorn, popped in your mouth, should really twist you off for a half hour or more. The stuff outside of China doesn't seem to do that. When I can, I'll try the toast and do a taste comparison. Better yet, I'll trick someone else into doing a taste comparison.

Heh - you don't sound very sorry. ← Please don't give me too much credit for on the road posting. I only managed the Beijing section while traveling, and everything since then is being done at home (although that's a challenge, too). Scud is quite a nice name. Scud East was one of the characters in Tom Brown's Schooldays, and later in the Flashman series (which, I must admit, is where I chanced across it). In the dictionary it's first given as a meteorologic term, refering to a light bank of clouds, running before the wind. From there it is taken up by sailing. And of course there's the next entry: a Soviet built ballistic missile capable of carrying chemical, biologic, and nuclear warheads. Given the accuracy with which they were tossed at us in 1991 as we huddle with our gas maks on, it's purely an instrument of random terror. What better name for a boy? We had to call him that when he was born on Friday the 13th, September, 1991.

Day 9 – Part 2 – To Market, To Market I love a good market. Beijing, and our guide had pointed us in the direction of a supermarket. That has its attractions, but it’s not quite the same. I remember in 1983, when I was working in Houston, a busload of Japanese tourists disembarked at the Kroger’s I was shopping in and proceeded to take pictures in the produce and meat sections. At the time I was bemused, now I can perfectly relate. Where was I? Oh, yes. Markets. Beijing was a write-off for me. And Xi’an’s “market” was interesting, but it was limited to packaged goods, dried fruits and nuts, and a few cakes and such like. I needed to get wet. We set off down Broad and Narrow Street, of which Broad is narrow, and Narrow is broad. It was an area that the local government had slated for demolition and development (like much of Chengdu), but where the locals had revolted and refused to move out. So, they turned it into a tourist destination…..sort of. Well, at least it’s got a Youth Hostel (darn, they’ve got all the good locations). At the end of this street was the local market. This was what I was looking for. Two floors of produce, spices and critters one step away from the pot. The main area downstairs was – at first glance – about fresh greens. Cauliflower, beens, lettuce, bok choy, daikon, celery, chillis….all well and good, but a little monochromatic. The tomatoes added some colour, as did the eggplants. And the only eggplant I saw was this form. There were none of the little pea sized aubergine, or the other varieties I’d been accustomed to in Laos. But there was a lot of fungus. Some that I was used to, while others had a diseased yellowish hue, and some a sickly grey. Once I saw these I started wishing for a kitchen. And piles and piles of green stuff. I wonder what this was in the front middle? There were piles of dried stuff. More fungus, ginger. I think those might be shallots in the front left, and I’m not certain about the stuff above the shallots, or the shredded orange stuff. And then there’s the really fun stuff. Mounds of spices and flavours. The ground pepper caught my eye, and then right beside it I saw what I was looking for. Fresh Sichuan peppercorn. Java picked up one corn for me to inspect, and asked me if I was used to this. I said, “But of course!” took the corn, and just as she was saying “No! It’s a bomb…..” I popped it in my mouth and tasted it. I spent the next ten minutes or so with the right side of my face doing Jim Carey impersonations. This was not the same Sichuan peppercorn I’d been used to from the shops in Canada and the MiddleEast. This was downright evil. I had to have some. I love these scales in the market (and they were selling them there, too). I picked up a kilo of the Sichuan, and then stocked up on gingko nuts and some of the dried chili powders. Java had some comments about my choice of “souvenirs”. We spotted some more manifestations of flubber, that gelatinous stuff we’d seen in Xi’an (or at least I think it might’ve been the same). The brown stuff on the left sure looked a lot like the acorn jello of the Koreans. And, of course, there was tofu. Gotta have tofu in a market. Fresh, dried or fried. Sheets or pleats, they’ve got it all. And there was a whole section given over to bamboo shoots. I thought they used a lot of bamboo in Yunnan, but Sichuan may take pride of place in this. And the pickles were well worth a taste test. I wonder what that green stuff is back there? And pastes. In Thailand I’d be seeing curries, but here there was black bean varieties, and the red Sichuan good-for-everything sauce (I picked up some in packages. It’s nice to see them using a plastic sheet to protect the bucket. It’d probably eat through. There also appeared to be a fair variety of lentils, not something I normally associated with Chinese cuisines. And sugars in any choice you’d want. Rough crystals, refined; or bricks of palm sugar in the back (and I think that might be the ubiquitous bean starch the Sichuanese use instead of corn flour in a lot of things – way back there). The noodle ladies were quite cheerfully vending their wares. While the eggs looked good, especially the packed and sealed ones (those odd misshapen things), I wasn’t cracked up to shell out for them (sorry). Scud spotted these and pronounced them as quail eggs. Tray after tray of them. We passed these on our way to the staircase to take us back to the ground floor, our sacks of purchases in hand. We came out in what I consider to be the more interesting part of the ground floor. Yup, it was Texas Chainsaw territory. Hacked, sliced, and minced. And the parts of the pig that didn’t fall into those categories had their own place to rest. Here’s some more of that typical Sichuan paste. This stuff was too dangerous to keep on the second floor, obviously, for fear of drippings eating through the reinforced concrete floor. And what would a Peter Green tour of markets be without the nasty bits? Offal by the bucket, all kept fresh and tender in buckets of water. There was a mix of what looked like gizzards from chicken and other parts from who knows what. There was a particularly pretty bowl of something that hadn’t been completely bled out. And right beside the offal the seafood started up. These squid looked really good, and would’ve been wonderful stuffed with some of the minced pork and herbs we’d seen already seen, then cooked up with the Sichuan sauce…..I’m drooling again. It was obviously crawfish season. I came across a basket of them just after some people moved on, their bags wriggling and little claws poking from the inside out. And then we found the eel whacking lady. Traditional eel preparation. They’re taking live and wriggling from the bucket, given a solid whack on the head, and pinned to a board with a nail in it (one of mankinds most sophisticated weapons, Scud pointed out). Then she guts it in an instant, and tosses the meat into the little pink basket. Serena spotted some household pet material. I didn’t try to explain the purpose of frogs and turtles in the kitchen to her. While Serena was admiring the turtles, she was suddenly splashed. One of the fish had managed to escape, leaping clear of its prison. She tenderly picked it up and put it back in the tank. I’m sure the fish was very grateful (“I was free. Free! How could you put me back?”). And that wrapped up the market visit. Some of what I consider to be culture, plus loot for the kitchen. We strolled back to the car, the plan being to get changed and head out for dinner and a teahouse. On the way back, a nice old lady wanted to conduct a tourist survey of me. Now, I know these people get paid by the completed survey, so I was willing to do my part. But this went on for a dozen pages. And we kept on having to go to “other” and explain that my main reason for coming here was not to go to Tibet, and was not to go to Wolong. I actually wanted to be in Chengdu…..for eating. Big smiles from her, of course. Then another required entry was “how much do you earn”. This I figured wasn’t going to be a good thing, and so I fobbed her off on that. But, as Java told me, it was a typical question in China, as by knowing (in the old communist system) how much a person made, you could quickly place them at the proper point in the hierarchy, as progression in the old system was pretty much set in stone. It was the access to perks that got people ahead. And that still has some draw. Even though the police are only making a few thousand RMB a month, it’s still a better job (more secure – pardon the pun) than being in the private sector and pulling down five to ten times as much. So, we parted, all smiles, and I and the Horde made our way back to the hotel to hose down and get ready for dinner. Next: Hot Pots and Dancing Tea

Honest, as soon as I saw the female tearing up the turf in her enclosure, and saw that chubby wobble at the back, my immediate thought was "that looks just like some chicken butts (Pope's Nose) I had as yakitori a few years back." For the next bit, the market, I expect everybody to dive in and correct and identify what I put up. For most of this I'll just be speculating (a polysyllabic version of guess). Cheers, Peter

Day 9 – Ground Zero – Chengdu – part 1 (this is a long day) I was very excited. Beijing, Xi’an….I’d enjoyed both of these, but they weren’t places I’d targeted for eating. Chengdu was. This one was mine. And I was keen. Keen as a keeny thingy….. Okay, you get the idea. Up to now, we’d been relying on guides for getting us around to the cultural spots, and hacking it on our own for eating. But Chengdu was different. There were things I wanted to accomplish, and for that I’d need translations and guidance. Originally, we’d contacted a friend of a friend, married to an Aussie, who was based in Chengdu. Karen had spent a couple of weeks in Sichuan at Wolong – at the panda centre – and had developed good relations, and felt this was someone who we’d get along with. Unfortunately, when we got ahold of her before the trip, she was leaving for Oz. But, she had a friend who she thought would work out well if what we were after was food. Hence, we got in contact with Java. I’d been working with her on the internet and on the phone, coordinating what we wanted to get done, and what we wanted to eat. This led to a fairly packed schedule for me, but a couple of free days around the place for everyone else. We’d looked at our timing, and ditched any out-of-town touring, as it would take us too far away from the restaurants we wanted. Did I mention I was very excited? As a comment, I recommend springing for a local chip when you’re in China. I bought the cheapest plan, $64 at the airport on arrival in Beijing. It might seem expensive, but when you have to meet someone, or if you need a restaurant or club to pass directions on to your taxi driver, it’s worth every penny. We’d arrived on Day 8, and our oversight company, the one that was getting us from place to place, did a good job (Mssrs Yang and Li) of getting us to the hotel – the Yinhe Dynasty – located in the heart of town. Mr. Yang was fine, but he wasn’t an eater. Arriving at the hotel, things were getting better and better. It’s big, modern, and clean. The rooms were even better than in Xi’an, and best of all, they had a statue of Zhuge Liang by the elevator. Second to eating, I’m a big fan of Zhuge Liang from the Three Kingdoms, and visiting his memorial in Chengdu was one of the other things that we needed to get done. It used to be that everyone read the Three K’s, but I think a Beijing comment sort of summed things up “No, I haven’t read the books. But I have played Dynasty Warriors!” So, we’d left the North, which was under the sway of Wei, and now we were firmly in Shu, the capital of the beleaguered remnant of the Han Dynasty. I had to see if I could buy myself a peacock feather fan. But, I digress. We woke in the morning with a long day ahead of us. First off, it was pandas. Panda Go Panda The breakfast room had great views over the busy streets three floors below. Horrible food, but great views. Mr. Yang had gone on about what a great breakfast they had, but the “great” part was limited to its being a large spread, rather than of acceptable quality. As with everything, there’s an upside, and for me it meant that I would carry a greater appetite through the rest of my day. And I was feeling good. I was feeling great. I was feeling hungry. Java met us on schedule in the lobby, and she’d arranged a driver, Mr. Li, to cart us about today. We were heading out to the suburbs to see pandas (and Serena was very excited). The Panda Centre is well worth the trip. I suppose, if you’re doing an extended volunteer stint, the Wolong Centre is where you want to be (and I have no reason to believe that the food isn’t good – this is Sichuan, after all). But I wasn’t looking for long, long car trips. We wanted to see pandas, and this would do. On the drive out (about 45 minutes) Java filled us in on bits and pieces. Sichuan is the most populous of the provinces, and also one of the poorest. Like the NorthEast of Thailand (Isaan) the province provides the muscle and backbone that’s doing the heavy lifting for the development of the country. When they show those New Year’s shots of the rail stations being mobbed with people trying to get home, most of those people are going to Sichuan. This came up as the poor part of town was on the East side, and that’s where the Panda Centre was. But even the poor side of town was seeing a fair bit of development. The SouthWest side, which we’d traversed coming in from the airport, was littered with million dollar houses (and complexes with names like “Vancouver Village” and “California Villas”), and there was obviously a lot of money about. Chengdu, as a name, means “Perfect Metropolis”. Perhaps it was a jinx to use that, as it’s been devastated time and again. The Mongols whacked it, as the Sichuanese had put up stiff resistance (it’s never a good idea to lose); Zhang Xiangzhong had run through his reign of terror there in the 17th century; and then the Japanese and the Communists in turn beat up on it when it was the Nationalists. Anyways, we arrived at the Pandas, and it was well worth it. I didn’t know that pandas made noises like horses. Nor had I ever seen them run. Heck, when I’d shelled out my bucks to see them in Chiang Mai a few years back, the little guys were comatose the entire time (young pandas are nocturnal it would seem, and the exhibit closed at dark). I’ve got some great photos of panda butts from that visit if anyone’s interested. The first one we saw was a female, and she was moving. She was the one making horse noises. She was tearing about her compound, running here and there, wagging that fat Pope’s Nose of a tail as she ripped about the cage. Close by was a group of males. They were more sedate, just sitting around, eating, and scratching themselves. Sort of like any group of males in front of a sports on TV. There were a couple of them – one eating, one being brain dead – that could’ve passed for Scud and I. But let’s get back to food. Pandas are carnivores who’ve given up meat. The teeth are still there, as are the digestive organs. But for some reason (one of the points of research here, along with breeding) they stopped eating meat, and switched to bamboo. And those same digestive organs are extremely inefficient at processing bamboo. For this reason they spend most of their waking hours in a continual eating process. Maybe I should eat more meat? This allowed me to use my panda joke on the kids. “A panda walks into a crowded bar. He sits at the counter and orders a scotch egg and some bamboo. He eats, the egg, scarfs down the bamboo, then pulls out a 9mm and fires it into the ceiling. The panda then leaves the bar.” “The terrified customers look up and see the bartender calmly drying glasses. “What was all that about?” they ask. “Well”, says the bartender, “that was a panda.” “So?” they say. “Well. As you know, a panda eats shoots and leaves.” The great thing about having kids is that there’s a whole world of tired jokes you can roll out on them, and they’re too small to beat you up (although Scud’ll probably nail me one of these days for a bad pun). We toured the center, carefully trying to avoid the two tour groups that were there. Again, having Java for translations was fun. Everywhere we went there were signs imploring us to be as quiet as possible. So what do we get? Crowds of curly haired older ladies screaming at the sleeping baby pandas “We came all the way here to see you! Wake up!” Vegging Out After we’d finished here, we headed for the Manjusri Monastery. We did a little sightseeing here, but our primary purpose was to eat at the vegetarian hall. The draw for the veggie hall is that they’ll use non-meat items to mimic Sichuanese dishes, or, as they say “serves Sichuan style meat-dish resembling vegetarian banquets and meals.” This is all part of the “new concept Buddhist catering culture, that is, compassion, and appreciate the enjoyment and benefits of vegetarian diets.” Pass me a bamboo shoot, will you? We ordered the crispy fish in sweet and sour sauce. It’s been made out of potato. It’s not quite holding the crisp, but is well worth eating, the sauce having a good solid tang to it, but not overpowering. The potato gave a good heaviness to it all that I enjoyed. In contrast, the fried intestines are made from tofu, and this is just plain evil. I loved it, buried under chilis and loaded with peppercorns to numb the mouth, well distributed as opposed to some of the Thai dishes that’ll just attack the front of your palate. Rice was the best defense on this, and I loved the old wooden bucket and the chugok (rice scoop) they landed on the table. The sautéed bamboo shoots were every bit as brutal as the fried intestines, maybe more so, as this was bit oilier, and so carried the burn. Now, I feel it’s good to expose children to new flavours. Luckily for Serena, Yoonhi doesn’t agree, and she ordered udon noodles in a casserole. This was very mild (by my standards) and came loaded with herbs and mushrooms. Serena approved, and even I liked it. After lunch we toured a bit, taking in Jinma lane and the environs, and then headed over to the People’s Park, one of countless abodes of the elderly. The elderly seem to be pretty busy in Chengdu. The park was abustle with dancing, singing, chess, and more poker games than you’d find on-line. As we strolled through this, we came across one vendor selling extremely pretty candy, spun out like glass into crickets and butterflies. And from the park, we were off to market.

Domestic, Thanks for those pics! I've gotta get me one. I could rig it up in the back of the Rover. For Chengdu, I'm going to have to break the postings up into partial days. There's just so much food to describe (and I am back at my day job now). I'm relying on all of you out there to jump in on anything I've captured in here and fill in the details (what is the Sichuanese word for a rice scoop?). Cheers peter

But a flickenmasher just sounded too cool not to use!

You could always buy one of these! Of course, you might be at risk of a raid by the ATF. Domestic Goddess and I were just discussing this here (it's near the bottom of the page)

Day 8 – Goosed, Dumpling’d, and Gone At breakfast, the kids brought up an interesting question. “Why are there so many mixed up families here?” I asked them what they meant, thinking at first that they meant my usual state of confusion. They pointed to one of the many Western couples we had seen with Asian girls. There seemed to be a large number of them at breakfast in the hotel, all the kids wearing red shirts and yacking away in English with their parents. My guess was that it was a tour of families who’d adopted Chinese children and were now bringing them back to see where they were born. It’s still a sad thing that there’s so much emphasis on male offspring in this nation of (largely) one child couples. As I was listening in on some of the tables (okay, I was eavesdropping) I was hearing about the Grey Goose Pagoda – which would be a great name for a martini. I suspected that they meant the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, and took this for a good omen, as it was first up for us today. We checked out of the Hotel Royal Garden and packed our bags into the van. We’d tour for the better part of the day, and make it to the airport in the early evening for the flight to Chengdu. I’d grown to like the hotel. Okay, the internet wouldn’t work in the room, but they had it available in the coffee shop, and they had Duvel and Leffe Belgian beers available there (as well as Bitburger and Birra Moretti). How could I complain under those conditions? As we drove to the Goose, Li Zhi filled us in on the history. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda – part of the Da Ci’en Temple - was built in the Tang Dynasty in order to house the Tripitaka that were brought to China by the Buddhist monk Xuanzang (portrayed in the classic Journey To The West as Tang Sanzang – Sanzang being a title for one who’s mastered the Tripitaka), built in the Tang Dynasty in the 8th century (the earlier, 7th century structure – being built of mud – hadn’t fared too well). Legend had it that at one monastery, meat was a required part of the diet. A particular festival had come up and no meat was at hand. Seeing a flock of geese passing overhead, one of the monks hoped that the Bodhisttva would provide for them. At that moment the lead bird fell dead at their feet. Rather than eat the bird, they took this as a sign to swear off meat forever. Who knows, maybe this could’ve been the earliest case of avian flu? I’d enjoyed seeing the Tripitaka at Hae In Sa years ago, and so was keen to look in the pagoda, but Li Zhi told me that most of the building was empty, and only a few pieces were on show here. Still, it was a pretty tower. Given that it was empty, Scud and I left the climbing and viewing to Serena and Yoonhi, as we were warned that it was something of a narrow fit as you got up to the top. I don’t do well with tiny steps, low ceilings, and narrow fits. As for Scud, he’s just lazy. Scud and I made do with ambling about the grounds, admiring the flowers, looking at the carving that was going on, debating just how much permanent damage could be done to your hair in this town, and checking out the X-Play video game reviews he’d been downloading to his iPod. The temple itself is active, with about 20 monks in residence. Occasionally, we’d see one about his business, wending through the crowds of tourists on the grounds. Yoonhi and Serena were down in a bit. The views were good, but the windows blocked by lattices and, yes, it was difficult navigating the last level. Yoonhi wanted to know what Scud and I had been doing, so I told her we’d been discussing different aspects of comparative religion in multimedia…..okay, okay, we were watching the review of the new PS2 version of God of War II. We never get away with anything. After the Goose, we had a short kite-flying break, and then took in the museum back in town. All of the big museums we’d seen in China to date had been well presented and worth the visit, and this was the same. I particularly liked one little pot they had on display. It’s filled from the bottom through a central well. Once the water reaches a set level, it hits the spillover point to the spout, and you know you’re full. Flip it over and you’re at a level where the water can’t overflow the central column. Having covered enough culture for the morning, we were into town for lunch. It was dumpling time. Defachang – Steamers’R’Us We’d scoped this place out the night before. The restaurant has a history going back to the 1930’s, but the current building – the Defachang Hotel – is fairly modern, and at night it’s hard to miss the wall of neon advertising the dumpling banquet. They’ve won a number of competitions for their dumplings, but a certain part of this (a lot) is based upon presentation. As you come through the front door, before you head up the stairs, they’ve got a number of examples on display. There’re little green ones shaped like frogs, and perfect little tomatoes in the back. Then others like flowers, fanciful little ducks and chickens, and my personal favourite, the pink pigs. We climbed the stairs to the second floor, and took our seats. Obviously, we were back in tourist country here, but we still only saw one other table with two Westerners sitting at it. It started with non-dumplings, a set of appetizers consisting of chicken satay sprinkled with sesame, some fried wheat noodles, shrimp in bitter gourd, and alfalfa in a vinaigrette. The bitter gourd was a nice match to the shrimp, and I preferred this to putting it in beer. I also figured out the jacket thing. They’d had these at Quanjude as well, and we were wondering if someone had forgotten their bags on the backs of the chairs. They have suit bags to go over your coats as you’re sitting. We’d taken off our coats, put them on our chair backs, and then the waitresses quickly slid the covers over them. They then brought out glasses of the local wine, a cloudy thing, somewhat honey-sweet, with a backtone of lemon. The steamer baskets all came with two different types of dumpling. First up were the tomato and mushroom dumplings. The tomatoes carried the flavour well, kind of sweet, and the mushrooms had that strong bite of shiitakes. Then we had rice and pork dumplings. Relying on Scud’s memory “they tasted like rice and pork.” Thanks, Scud. Next was another type of pork in a translucent wrapper, and the walnut dumplings. And these walnut dumplings looked like walnuts. Unfortunately, they also tasted a lot like steamed walnuts. It’s a pity, as I’d been overcome with lust as soon as I saw them, but the texture came through too thick, too chestnutty, and I was disappointed. It’s not that they’re bad, but I’d grown up with an immense walnut tree in my back yard, and we were used to fresh roasted walnuts (before the squirrels got out of hand in Vancouver). Next up on the right side of the table were chicken and ham jiaozhi We were getting slowed down a bit, and the next wave hit us: vegetable and chicken on the left side of the table and pork and shrimp to starboard After the steamers, we had a couple of fried dumplings. The first was sweet, much more of a pastry: and the second vegetable filled and chewy: Another steamer now showed up with vegetable and pork. And then the big soup pot came out Which had small chicken ball dumplings in a chicken stock. And we received some boiled pork dumplings as well So, what was the body count? All in 19 different types of dumplings. Steamed, fried, and boiled. As you would expect, a peak in the kitchen is fun. There’re a lot of steamers racked up in there (with way more around the corner, but this was a stroll-by-shooting, so I didn’t want to be too obvious). What we’d had was sort of the lower end tourist version of the banquet. No shark’s fin (which is okay by me), and not too much elaboration on the detail of the dumplings. I gather that things can get pretty elaborate, especially when the VIPs are in town, although often they’re taken to the Xi’an restaurant instead, depending on where they’re from. From the Defachang it was a short stroll to the Bell Tower. As we’d seen the Drum show in Beijing, it seemed worthwhile to do the Bell show here. A little dancing, a little music, basically a pretty short, cursory stop. As Yoonhi said, it might’ve made more of an impact if the dancer’s blue jeans weren’t showing under her skirts from time to time. And from there back into the Muslim Quarter and the Grand Mosque. When we’d first set this trip up - I with my obsession for food and Yoonhi with her AMS (Asian Mom Syndrome) for getting the kids exposed to the most culture - we’d debated dropping this from the itinerary. After all, we’d been in the Middle East for decades. Did we really need to see another mosque? That would have been a bad decision. Luckily, we stayed with the plan. The Great Mosque is beautiful. In the grosser sense, it’s a very pretty piece of Asian architecture, with a stunning garden laid out inside the grounds. Then, when you look in detail, you find the requirements for a mosque; the ablution area, the prayer hall itself, the minaret, which is effectively a pagoda. The garden was fun for Serena. It’s full of birds making their usual racket. Clap your hands and everything will go silent for a moment, and then suddenly come back up to volume. Needless to say, Serena did a lot of clapping. For the very reason that we’d thought of dropping it, this was worth doing. We tend to fixate too much on the stereotypical view of things, and this gave the family (and me) a different aspect to mull over. Outside of the mosque we did a bit poking about in the tourist stuff, but then we realized we had a problem. We still had an extra couple of hours before we needed to check into the flight to Chengdu. We were still too bloated from the lunch to consider spending the time eating (I was better, but still not back in true form), and no one was keen on sitting at the airport. I asked about other sites, and Li Zhi came through. It was a little uncomfortable for her at first, as the plans they set up are all worked out to the kilometer traveled on the vehicles and a lot of other factors, so impromptu changes can be tough, but once she realized that money wasn’t the main concern here (given how much we’d spent to get to Xi’an). What she recommended was that we take in the Han Yang Mortuary. This is a fairly modern dig that’s only been opened up in early 2006 to the public, so it hasn’t made it onto the itineraries. It’s located relatively close to the airport, so we could do this and not run too much of a risk with regards to getting our flight. Plus, we had some great highway signs as we went by. My two personal favourites were: Do Not Drive Carefully and No Lions Pressing (which I think meant no passing on the solid line….but you never know) The Mortuary is a Western Han tomb for their fourth emperor, Jingdi (around 150 BC). There’s the usual huge artificial mound for him, and another mound nearby for the empress, with another 260 or so auxiliary tombs in the area. This was neat, as they’ve burrowed the museum into the ground, and rather than observing the pits from the side, they’ve constructed a clear floor overhanging the pits that you traipse over, viewing the relics directly beneath you. They’ve got one section of the tomb that consists of all of the animals that the Emperor Jingdi would have needed for the kitchen in the afterlife. Herds of cows, chickens, pigs, and so forth. Everyone in our family was represented except for me….the rat. But we suspect there may be one or two in their somewhere. Unfortuntately for this writeup, we didn’t get a shot of that, but it’ll make it into the video (whenever I get that finished). The figures here aren’t life sized like the Terracottas. Generally they’re the about 1/3 scale, and they were meant to be clothed, so you get more of the feel of an abandoned mannequin factory at times. But the museum display section does a good job of giving you the feel of what the restored elements would’ve looked like. With the mausoleum, we were just about in perfect time for the airplane…..if we’d been flying China Airlines. As it was China Eastern doesn’t open their check-in until later, but we figured we could thank Li Zhi and get on with things ourselves (once we’d pried Serena off of her). We checked in, and things went easily for the domestic check-in this time. I’d forgotten to mention on the Beijing exit that Chinese airports have a strict restriction on no bottles in your hand carry. Water they’ll open and check, but if you happen to be carting around some good Armagnac and single-malt whiskey (I’d gone for a bottle of Clynelish 14 year old) it’s either give it up for the good of the people or (like us) scurry back to the check-in counter and put one of your hand carries into the hold (and hope for the best….although we’ve got pretty sturdy hand-carry bags). As a note on the airport, Denise Café – after security - isn’t bad. The pork ribs we had there were exceptionally tender, just falling apart, and the broth was excellent. Also, Denise Café had a great selection of beers, covering Birra Moretti, Corona, Heiniken, and Newcastle Brown Ale. Comments on Xi’an I liked Xi’an. When I’d planned this trip, I’d actually tried to drop the town, but gave in on cultural reasons. After having spent two nights, I wish I’d done more. Li Zhi was of the same mind. She was Manchurian, originally from up by the Korean border. She’d done her university studies here in Xi’an, but found the city too attractive to leave (although proximity to the North Korean border may also be a good reason not to go back, too). While it’s huge (over 7 million now), the city walls collect things into a manageable space for the visitor, and give you a well defined and enjoyable space to explore. Pollution wasn’t a problem, the traffic was way less psychotic, and the food was very good. We’d stayed with the local cuisines – the Muslim Hui offerings, the back alley Han selections, and the dumplings that they’re so proud of, but we saw plenty of Sichuan and Cantonese restaurants about, as well as Japanese, Korean, Italian, and one French place near the South Gate. If I’d been feeling healthier there were also a few good strips of night life out there that would’ve been fun to hit up (and which would’ve had more food). But, it’s the same old lament. So many meals, so little time. Next is Chengdu.

Hi, Sheena, Yoonhi was born in Korea, but she's probably more Canadian than I am. Still she's got a lot of memories from there, and from her family's cooking that I make free use of. (Plus, she's got a degree in food science, which really helps me out). The bundaeggi (silk worm larva) were much bigger in China. Yoonhi remembers getting a bunch of them in a little paper cone from the neighborhood vendors. Her take on the noodles was that they were "same same but different". The Korean version would've been heavier on the sauce and more black bean. Nowadays it's not much of a thing for the youngsters, but she says - back when she was a little kid - it was a big deal, as it wasn't something you'd make at home, you'd have to go out to a Chinese restaurant for it. One of her family friends, when he was a student, if he got really good marks, his parents would dress up and take him out for a bowl of ja jang myun, and they'd watch him eat. He's in his 70's now, and he still considers it a treat. I guess it's sort of like when I was a kid in Vancouver. If all of us boys had been behaving ourselves for awhile (which didn't happen often) our parents would dress up in jackets and clip-on ties and we'd go to the Varsity Grill for chow mein. Ah, those were the days. As for starfish, I'll have a verdict in a week or two. I bought some and brought them back for the kitchen here. Cheers, Peter

Okay, both Jokhm and XiaoLing are going with potato flour as the basis for the gelatinous things. I'm good with that! Does anyone know the characters for this, and/or the process for making the things? When I think potato flour, I think gnocchi, and those definitely aren't gnocchi. It'd be fun to try and do those at home. Cheers (and thanks!), Peter

Day 7 – Toy Soldiers When I woke up, I felt much more like myself than I had when I didn’t. My stomach was settled, and it appeared that whatever issues my body had had were cleared out. Li Zhi was working out well, and not only as a plush toy for Serena’s use. We’d asked her if we could rearrange the schedule a bit to do the Terracotta Warriors today, rather than on the airport day. As it’s a bit of a drive from in the opposite direction from the hotel, we figured this would be more sensible. We arrived at the site after an hour or so, the last portion enlivened by a host of shops with signs like “The shop of counterfeit terracotta warriors”. There’s a lot to be said about truth in advertising. After parking by the Tourism Shopping Center of Qin Yong Parking Lot there was a good fifteen minute march through the empty shop complex. The whole area is being built up (and cleaned up) in advance of the Olympics, and Xi’an is expecting to benefit from spillover tourism as the majority of the visitors are expected to pop by for a look see a the Emperor Qin Shihuang collection of model soldiers. The site was discovered in the late ‘70s when a group of farmers, digging a new well, unearthed pottery shards. They decided that no attention was the better option, and covered everything up, but not before one of the guys smuggled out a couple of pieces, and biked into town with them to visit the local museum. The result was the discovery of the terracotta warriors, and a few yuan for the one farmer, and a job for life signing books in the lobby of the reception hall. It’s an impressive thing to see. Row after row of troops; some complete, and some still headless. In some locations still fallen in place, not yet restored. And all with moustaches. To be considered a soldier worth your salt, you have to have a moustache. The guards were more attentive now than before (even if they didn’t have moustaches). A year or more ago a tourist had snuck in when the guards were all off at lunch, and had managed to pose as a warrior for a couple of hours before someone noticed that he didn’t quite fit in. Now the guards have to work in shifts over meal times. They didn’t look too pleased at this. We were deep in the heart of tourism here. There was group after group of foreigners marching through, jostling, and shopping for trinkets. Where were all of these people yesterday when we wandered around the town? Given that we were at one of the most important tourist sites in the country, I had to pick up a souvenir. I spotted it in a shop window near the entrance: Ku Gua, the bitter gourd beer. Proudly, I bought a bottle, my plan being to chill it down as far as I could in the room in order to be able to drink it. And, yes, it’s a Han’s product too. As a note, I wasn’t ever sure if it was “Hans” with Teutonic overtones, or “Han’s” with a more local note, as I saw it spelt both ways on their products and ads. (If the second is correct, then would the possessive be “Han’s’ ”?….maybe I worry too much?) By one o’clock we were done in, and looking forward to our return to town. Li Zhi and Mr. Li dropped us off at the hotel, and suggested that the Muslim quarter by the Drum Tower would make good stalking grounds for dinner, while, if we were interested, there was a nearby spot for “local fast food”. We chose this for our immediate needs, and got down to the important business of eating. The Shaanxi Typical Fast Food Restaurant was, in effect, a cafeteria. Metal trays, all the luminous drinks the kids could hold down, and a selection of about twenty or thirty things in bins. This posed an opportunity for trying a number of different things in manageable quantities. Myself, I tried the Northwest Wolf Royal Beer, with a great label, and surprisingly good taste, bubblousity and crispness. How did this happen? The food wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. No, scratch that. It was bad. The problem was primarily in our timing. We’d arrived after the lunch rush, and there was no great hurry to refill things at this point, so the food was generally luke-warm, and the buns and dumplings were getting a bit tough. It’s a pity, as the background flavours were promising it’s just that the food had been sitting around too long. If we’d had more time (like a week) in Xi’an, it would’ve been a good place to come back to early in the day, when they first filled the trays. While the town is laid back, the noise level was as expected. This picture sums up the etiquette of cell phone use fairly well: After some more poking around the street and a bit of a rest, we headed out into the night to find dinner in the Muslim quarter. En route, for a quick pick-me-up, we grabbed some corn. This was selling well, and steamed corn is always cheerful. At least, it kept Serena content as far as the Drum Tower, the gateway to the Muslim quarter. Right at the start of the quarter there was another market selling food, so we had to pop in here. [/MG]http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1176374588/gallery_22892_4411_97656.jpg In addition to the dried fruits and nuts – which got Yoonhi’s attention – there were also some nice Chinese cakes. I harbour fond memories from my teenage years of stopping in at the bakeries in Vancouver and getting a couple of these for a snack. They were just as I remembered, a flakey mess that falls all over you as you chomp in. As I made a mess of my clothes, I turned my attention to a collection of boxes across the aisle. These were all snack foods, bars of pressed nuts and fruits. I had to have some. When Yoonhi finally dragged me and my purchases out of the market, we headed up the street proper. Their stomachs were talking to them, and it was time we did something about that. The street was lined with Muslim restaurants, but not like the ones I’m used to from the Middle East. Two stories (in general) with intriguing balconies looking out on the streets, and with big food sections out in front. The crowd was a mix of Han out for the food, and Hui either eating, shopping, working, or yacking away. I came to a halt in front of a big pot of stuff. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Yoonhi found a tub of the uncooked material just behind, and, with it’s translucent wobbly look, thought it might be a jelly – perhaps like the Korean acorn jelly, mook - or else a form of rice cake. But I’d already shifted my attention to the pile of crawfish over on the other side of the door by the flat breads. That was it, we were having dinner. I flagged out one of the waitresses, pointed first at the fried gelatinous stuff and then at the crawfish, and we went inside for a seat where we ordered some soft drinks for the kids and a Tsingtao draft for Yoonhi and I. The place was packed, with lots of locals and Han at the tables, and waiters wandering around with burnt bits of meat on metal skewers looking for takers. The gelatinous stuff appeared to be rice cake, with a nice brown flavour coating it, touched off with a tiny bit of chili and chopped spring onions. It wobbled nicely as we moved it onto our spoons, and had a filling feeling on the palate. The crawfish were a lot of work, but were worth it. For this they handed out the proctology gloves, which were good for all of about three crawfish before they were so perforated by the chitin that you were better off taking them off. I like crawfish at any time. They’re a great social dish, as you don’t get much food off of them, but it gives you a great centerpiece for talking, drinking, and being generally barbaric. These ones had a very nice sauce, flavoured with some star anise we found amongst the bodies. Maybe the meat was a little on the soft side, but I wasn’t complaining. The burnt-stuff-on-sticks guys were working the room, looking for takers for the satay fresh off of the trough outside. Scud was having problems getting full from what we had, so he waved at the guy, who happily started parsing out metal skewers of meat onto Scud’s plate. I was somewhat taken aback at how many they’d given Scud, but I figured he was a growing boy, so he should be able to handle it. In the interest of being a compassionate father, however, I did have a few myself. The meat was very good. There was a gentle spice on these, and plenty of fat to smooth things out. Before long Scud (with my help) had pretty much worked through all of them. We called for the cheque, and then the waiter started counting the skewers. At this point we realized that we didn’t have to eat all of them, just as much as we wanted (we didn’t mind too much). Back on the street, we stopped in for a quick snack of rice cake (not that we were hungry). The man was working in the stall while behind him the lady was portioning the rice cake with a piece of string. And from there we worked our way back to the Towers, and then to home. Curiously, whoever had the ice cream bar concession across from the Bell Tower on the East Road was doing great business. There were hundreds of wrappers all over the place, with some poor souls collecting them up and bagging them; whether as a job, or in order to get money for the recycling I don’t know. Once home, it was time to try the Ku Gua. I’d put it into a bucket of ice before we left for dinner, and so it was down about as cold as I could get it. My initial reaction? Good even bubbles. It started off with a good head, but this quickly fell to scum. With some trepidation (I noticed that, buried in the label details, there was a picture of a wolf baying in what appeared to be intestinal agony) I took a swig. I was surprised to find that it was only mildly repulsive, and tried another taste. Yoonhi tried a taste, and agreed that, as bad things went, it wasn’t as vile as some. For a moment we considered finishing the bottle, and then weighed this option against a nice shot of Armagnac. I’ll leave our decision to your imaginations.

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. ← And that in turn explains the heavy presence of Budweiser in Shanghai.......

Day 6 – Xi’an Dust. I always used to think of dust when I thought of Xi’an. I blame the Terracotta warriors, as all I ever conjured up at the mention of Xi’an is an image of line after line of brown statuary. But as I looked down from the Boeing, what I saw were green fields cut by the dendritic tendrils of rivulets. And flowers. I hadn’t seen any flowers for a week (I don’t count the pots of plastic flowers adorning Wangfujing Lu in Beijing). This was our first internal flight in China this trip, and the first ever for the family. Yoonhi was a little nervous about the old reputation of Chinese carriers (CAAC – China Airlines Always Crashes), but I’d told her that those days were in the past, and she should reserve her fears for Russia instead. And I told her that the headrests on all the seats advertising “Pompei” were not an omen of flaming death. As we came in lower, I pointed out all the pretty little graves overlooking the runway; the runway being dug lower into the ground than the surrounding fields, itself like an open grave waiting for the aircraft……. Okay, I wasn’t helping. Our guide – Li Zhi – was female. I hate to sound sexist, but I do find that female guides work better with families, in particular with Serena, who latched onto her with her lamprey-like hug and wouldn’t let go for much of the trip. Li Zhi and our driver, Mr. Li (a neat coincidence, as our driver in Beijing was also a Mr. Li) took us into town and delivered us to the rather schizophrenic Hotel Royal Garden, which was a step up in quality and room size from the Dong Xiao Min Xiang that we’d left behind very early that morning. I say schizo as this hotel, according to the bits and pieces I’d found around the room, along with my 1994 edition of Lonely Planet China, indicated that this place had started off as the Royal Hotel, part of the Nikko Hotels group (Japanese), then fell under Le Meridien’s sway, then changed it’s name to Hotel Royal Xi’an when it was passed off to the Huang Cheng Hotels International group, and was now the Hotel Royal Garden. We were on our own now for the rest of the day, so we wasted little time in the room, heading out for the street and the city. Identity-challenged or not, I liked the location of the hotel. We were just a couple of blocks from the central Bell Tower, and from there to the South Gate, which Li Zhi had advised would be a good place to look for food. But the clan wasn’t going to wait that long. We’d missed breakfast, and it was now lunchtime, so I ducked us into the first place that looked easy. This turned out to be the Yummy Restaurant and Pub. It was a nice bright shopfront, and I was hoping that the “pub” part might mean there was a pool table. No pool table, but what we did find was a nice clean little place, with a definite Korean-Japanese feel to it in the decorations. Call it a homey-ness, but it did look like something out of a Banana Yoshimoto novel. (When we talked with Li Zhi the next day, she did say that - with all the industry in town – Japanese were the most common expats, and Koreans the next biggest group). The kids had strawberry banana milks, which came across very much as smoothies. You had to keep stirring them as they quickly separated, but they were quite good. And Serena had fish ball soup, nice and mild, with slices of ham resting at the bottom. She followed this with a bento, a box set containing soft spareribs, rice, soy daikon pickle, vinegar pickles, and Chinese cabbage. Meanwhile, Scud had ordered the fried cabbage and bacon, with garlic and chilis. This was wonderfully greasy while still crunchy. The 3 Cup Squid we ordered came with pine-cone hunks of very soft squid, and garlic the size and texture of small potatoes. And my choice, the “bot and spicey chitling pot” had a very mild burn, and excellent broth. There was plenty of chicken bits in there, as well as noodles, blood, tofu and even some chicken meat. The broth was good enough that we dared to order rice. As a comment, and I know I’ll draw flak for this, we were never too happy with the quality of steamed rice in China. It never held together well enough, and the texture wasn’t quite right for us. But what we received here was good, standard Calrose style rice, artfully sprinkled with some toasted sesame and bit of spring onion. I considered ordering a Choya – “since 1914”, but from the advertising it was hard to tell if it was a beverage or a beauty aid. It had a happy woman’s face, and a picture of a bottle with something that looked like sheep testicles floating inside. As I was feeling a little rough, I opted for a local beer instead. Li Zhi had advised me on the local beers; there was Han’s, and Royal Wolf, and something local made from bitter gourd called Ku Gua. What I found here at Yummy was the Han’s 90. Upon inspecting the bottle, it turns out that Han’s – while local – is owned by the Tsingtao empire. Their tendrils are everywhere. After lunch we made our way down to the Bell Tower, passing through a gauntlet of hair salons. Forget about dust, now if I think of Xi’an I think of endless crowds of teenagers with Korean pop-star hair. As we went by the salons we saw some interesting gear, a large circular contraption with hoses dangling down from it. Hooked up to some kid’s head, it looked like a Roswell alien probe moment. From the Tower we headed to the South Gate, taking in the window dressing in the shops as we went. (What this tableau had to do with Little Nemo, I have no idea, but Serena definitely felt she belonged in there). Despite the feeling that something was going seriously wrong with my internals (a feeling that had been growing on me since the plane flight) I was beginning to like this town. It had flowers, sunlight, and nobody seemed to be in too great a rush. The traffic wasn’t as aggressive as Beijing, and people seemed to be more laid back. And it felt accessible. This was in large part due to the old city wall containing and defining certain limits. This is an illusion, of course, as the city is quite large, and primarily industrial, enlarged by Mao as an attempt to redistribute some of the economy away from the coast. But the city wall defined the older part of Xi’an, which had been the centre of the Han civilization for centuries before, some of the oldest remains dating back 6,000 years. And it was a really nice wall, as city walls go. Well restored, tastefully decorated with lamps and concessions around the old towers, and wide and level enough that Yoonhi and Serena could take off on a tandem bike and spin around to the East gate while Scud and I hiked on foot, taking in the sights below on either side. When the girls returned on bike, we descended to a collection of restored old houses to the east of the South gate. Again we noted that the youth hostels seemed to have the best locations, this one being right at the entrance to this gentrified part of the old town. We wandered through the stalls selling brushes, paper, chops, and trinkets, and stopped for a couple of snacks (our motto “if in doubt, eat it”). This one Muslim lady we came across had little steamers, each with a sticky rice cake inside which she would extract, and then dip in sugars and toastings. We ambled down the street, seeing it change from the idealized tourist version to the comfortable squalor of a Chinese back street, with more and more eateries lining each side of the road, each of a size to accommodate about 8 people or less. Noodles, buns, and meats. And lots of things on sticks. In particular, I saw one place with excellent-looking sausages – a foot or more long, and as big in circumference as my thumb. But my appetite wasn’t quite there for me, so we passed on. We also came across a popcorn maker. Yoonhi perked right up at this. If a simple pressure cooker makes Anthony Bourdain nervous, this would have him trembling. Corn or rice is brought to the vendor, he puts it into the sealed canister, and then puts it over a charcoal brassiere and waits. When it’s ready you get this huge banging noise. Hence, the Korean name “bang” (appropriate enough). Yoonhi doesn’t think they have these things in Korea anymore…..at least in the South. Noodles looked good down here and on the busier commercial street leading back to the hotel I found the wonderfully named “First Noodle Under The Sun”. I wish I could’ve eaten more, but I was dragging. Back in the room, I rested, washed, made use of the coffee shop internet to write a bit, and then Yoonhi wisely dragged me out of the room to keep me moving. We did things in small stages. Across the street was a small market, and we stopped in here to see what there was. The claustrophobic centre strip was the usual collection of hair pins, makeup, and other necessities, but the outer aisle had all sorts of places selling dried fruits and nuts galore. There were dried kiwis and persimmons and mountains of walnuts, the specialty of the Muslims – the Hui minority here in Xi’an, culturally close to the Han, rather than like the Uighurs to the West who are more aligned with the Turkmens. The merchants were keen for us to try different things, and were constantly pushing samples our way. And the dried fruits and roasted nuts were fresh, rather than the last-year’s crop that we’re used to. We bought some dried mangos and fresh roasted chestnuts, a bag of this and a kilo of that, and then, my vitality slightly revived, we went in search of dinner. We retraced our steps from earlier in the day, aided in our quest by the odd rice crispy explosion. I wanted to find that sausage. On the way we passed countless steamers with buns, and tried a few at random, getting a selection including vegetables, sweet bean, shiitake mushrooms, and pork and chicken fillings. We have no idea what they were (although the female vendors eagerly explained to us what each was, to little effect). Back in the alleyway I found my pork man, but he had already sold out of the sausage. I was devastated, and consoled myself by ordering a nice ham hock. I assumed that the attached shopfront was the rest of his establishment, but it appeared that wasn’t the case, so we ordered the most expensive thing on their menu (9 Yuan), a bottle of Han’s 9, and pulled out water bottles for the kids. With the beer and the mystery dish, we also got some cheerful little pickles, reeking of vinegar and helping to settle my stomach a bit. The mystery dish turned out to be offal soup, with nice large intestines and sheets of honeycomb tripe in a rich pork broth. I ate what I could, while Scud and I gnawed the trotter down to size. With dinner out of the way, we strolled sedately back to the hotel, bracing the hairdressers that were offering internal probes with their alien artifacts (at least that’s what it seemed like to us). Back home, feeling worse and worse, I took Serena downstairs for some ice cream. I nibbled a little, and felt much better for the little umbrella. Like the donkey said in Shrek “Everybody loves parfait”.

Steven, Thanks for this write-up. Like you, I'd found This' book less than satisfying (and an akward thing to reference), so it's great to get the live version. He sounds like Marshall McLuhan - opaque in print while completely engaging in life. Did you get a feel for what the future direction of the group will be? I do hope you'll be attending the future events! Cheers, Peter

Day 5 – The Beijing Death March Just as our forefathers before us migrated across the ice sheets, and as our parents would pile us into station wagons to traverse the breadth and width of the Americas, so to do I feel that it’s a crucial part of any family vacation to spend at least one day traveling for hour after hour for no apparent reason. It was a free day. One of those glorious moments that I had pried from Yoonhi’s schedule of cultural antiquities. Of course, the way I had managed this was by promising to include several cultural antiquities, so I suppose it was something of a zero-sum game. Still, we were afoot, with hours to go before we would have to be back at the hotel. We began by walking over to Tian An Men, admiring the Olympics advertising, and cutting up through the Eastern streets by the Forbidden City, stopping by the odd gallery in a restored building and admiring the little cafes and holes in the walls that lined the sides. Many of these were, literally, holes in the wall; small counters over which you could conduct business, buying steamed buns, fried wheat cakes, and more. It’s great fun wandering down the streets, their clean, scrubbed facades falling away into happy chaos once you look inside. Here’s a shot of what the Koreans would call yon tan. Charcoal briquets, the primary cooking fuel for a lot of the country. I still blame the use of this for my chronic string of lung infections I’d always incurred while traveling in China (and which we avoided this trip). Coming out of the Forbidden City area, we crossed the street and stopped in at the Big Tree Café for some coffee and a rest. I liked this place. Pretty good English, and lots of signs up for services ranging from organized tours to the “rent-a-buddy”, where you can get someone to handle your translation and general problems, and basically act as a great reference source on just about anything except the historical stuff. Refreshed, we headed North, towards the Bell and Drum Towers where we’d done our “rickshaw” ride of the day before. We’d felt this was a part of town that deserved more attention, particularly as it looked to have a lot of good cafes, bars, and video game places. Now, that’s culture. However, as a sop to Yoonhi, we were going to do the Drum Tower. I can’t get away with everything. Before that, we had lunch. The people at Big Tree Café had said that the area at the Ping An Dajie Lu on the NorthWest corner had some good eats, so, after we went past the place selling the rubber Osama Bin Laden masks we came upon a good sized façade with two guys with gongs. How could we pass up on gongs? Okay, I have no idea what the name of this place is, so if anyone wants to chime in based on the photo, please do. Once we got to the door, we got gonged and yelled at, and then shown to our table. I kept looking for Chuck Barris. As this was our last day, I wanted to get the kids some more duck while we could, so we ordered the Peking Duck, and then I was interested in the chicken I saw at someone else’s table, so we ordered that, too. And I drew a picture of noodles for the waitress, and she nodded (which could mean anything). I suggested pork while pointing stupidly at another page, and she nodded again. You can tell that I’m coping well. The duck was good, nice skin and good fat content. The pork was really interesting; it came as a cold dish, a jelly of bits and pieces, with a light chewiness to it. There were lots of carrots, tofu, onion, and bean sprouts in there. And the noodles were a welcome sight. Yoonhi said “jya jyen myen” and the waitress perked right up and agreed. This Northern Chinese dish is one of the Koreans’ favourite noodle dishes. Good solid noodles with a topping of sauce that then all gets mixed together. The chicken worked out well, too. It had been butterflied, it’s head held proudly erect in death, and the sauce tasted a lot like the “strange flavour” chicken. But there was something in the sauce as well, almost the texture of chopped lemon grass. Lunch in hand (or stomach) we were on the march again, heading up to the Drum Tower where we took in the view and the short little show they do. Perhaps the best part was the staircase. It was pretty close to vertical, and was all sorts of fun to do with the remnants of a half dozen beers still swimming around. But, we survived that with anything being broken, and then we headed East on Ping An Dajie Lu (at least, I’m pretty certain that was it). The street is a lot of fun, with game stores, anime shops, music stores galore, and a good selection of live music venues. My plan had been to walk over to Yonghegong – the Lama Temple – but, with the time we’d spent dilly-dallying (okay, the time I spent dilly-dallying) we made it to the orange part of town just as the monastery was closing to visitors for the day. Still, that’s all part of the fun of marching your family into the ground. At this point I pulled out the map and suggested we could walk over to the Noodle Loft on Xi Dawang Lu. If we made good time, we could be there before daybreak. I was unceremoniously gagged and tossed into a taxi. Armed with the address, we headed out for Shanxi noodles. Unfortunately, I was armed with the address and no means of communication. I flipped a coin and we went the wrong way up Dawang Lu. Disembarking there, I did something no self respecting man should ever do…..I asked for directions. This resulted in heads being scratched, followed by a unanimous pointing of fingers in different directions. This was a place that had been very well recommended, and I wanted noodles, damn it! I spotted what looked to be a relatively new hotel a few blocks south, and headed there in search of a concierge. This worked out, and he was able to phone the Loft and get directions. Then, when we got a taxi, good luck kicked in. As soon as I’d said “Mian Ku Shanxi Shiyi” our driver got all enthusiastic – smiles and thumbs up, followed by eating motions – and headed off with us in an attempt to break the land speed record. The Loft looks good. It reminded me a lot in style of the late lamented Dark & Duck on the 3rd Ring Road by the Kempinski (I’d driven by the day before and saw that, indeed, that whole area was rebuilt). Big space, and two floors. We went upstairs first, then realized where we wanted to be was downstairs where all the noodle bar action was going on. The menu looked really good, and there’s a lot there I’d like to go back for, beyond just the noodles. But my big interest here was noodles, so that’s what I went with. At this point, a near mutiny was on hand. All good road trip days should end in near-mutinies. (Bad road trip days end in real mutinies). We had the “noodle made with one chopstick with beef brisket”, and the noodle with eel, and cold blended oats noodles, and kaolaolao oats noodle. The noodle bar was loads of fun to watch. We observed one of the guys man-handling a large green lump about the size and weight of a small child, kneading the dough and working it over. Then he took this over the side and, as best I can describe it, he threw one long string of noodle off of it and into the pot. It was like watching yarn being spun out. And there was plenty of kalgetsu action like we’d seen at lunch a few days earlier, the dough hoisted up on one shoulder and shaved into the pot. And then there was the flattening, folding, dusting, folding, and finally cutting of good noodles going on. The flavours were (for me) great, with a lot of vinegar in the food, with a hot bite that grew on you. Thankfully, they scissored the noodles at the table so you didn’t have to take the whole thing as one string (Yoonhi always holds that scissors are an important part of any kitchen’s equipment). The Kaolaolao oats noodle was more like a big waffle than anything else, or a honeycomb. This came with a couple of good, burning sauces to dip in. The noodle with eel was beautifully executed. Both the noodles and eels were equally slippering, giving a matching texture that was lots of fun to slurp down. Given the amount of chili oil heat going on, it made sense to get Serena a simple bowl of noodles without a burning hot sauce. I should’ve done more stills of all the work going on, but I was busy videoing. Luckily, we were early, so I wasn’t being too much of a nuisance. The only other business at this time was a thriving trade in take-away, people getting their noodles, and then heading out, bags in hand. If the family had let me walk back home, it could’ve been a perfect night. However, it was a taxi back to the Dong Jiao Min Xiang, a moment’s debate about running up to Snack Street again, another minor munity, and an early night to bed to be ready for our 6 a.m. pick up the next day to head to Xi’an.

Okay, 90 more minutes and we go off-line for the trip home. It was Bao Luo for lunch, that Tardis of a restaurant - a tiny shop front and a huge dining hall hidden inside through some odd intra-dimensional trick the Shanghainese do. Good pork and a great Greedy God dried goose pot. But we'll get to that in time. Last night will take awhile to work out, but I'll try and get the guts of it down during this flight. Lotus on 36 at the Pudong Shangri-La. Outstanding meal, and a lot of neat tricks to try at home (I've been missing my kitchen). Some fun blues at the Cotton Club And I've been missing my home internet connections, too. I'll get things uploaded and get through the trip as fast as I can. Cheers, Peter

The kids have been great overall, but they do need their fix from time to time. For Serena, it's been the McD's cheeseburger happy meal (I think mainly for the Hello Kitty camcorder.....okay, I might even buy one for a Hello Kitty camcorder). Scud - the boy - summed it up best today, though, from a young teenager's perspective...... "God, it's been so long since I've had foie gras, caviar, and champagne." It's a hard life.

SG, Great stuff! What're the directions to get to your cousin's place in KL? Peter