River Li Beer Fish is a well known speciality of China tourist trap, Guilin and particularly the nearby small town of Yangshuo which is a horrible Disney-fied version of some alternate universe's version of China full of spotty backpackers who have been in China 15 minutes, worked it all out but can't live a minute longer without a banana pancake and a very bad pizza.
The river is beautiful; the town is a nightmare. Lonely Planet hell.
The beer fish dish is carp (careful how you spell that), supposedly from the Li River, braised with chilli and spices, soy sauce and the local beer, Liquan, made in Guilin. The more gullible tourists think that the fish is caught at night by local fishermen with trained cormorants who dive for the fish by torchlight then hand them over to their masters. In fact, they are farmed just outside the town in the other direction. The cormorant guys are a dying breed who just perform for the tourists.
Now they have launched what is labelled as Li River Beer Fish (漓江韵啤酒鱼). However, this has no relation to the original. It is beer food in the sense that it is the sort of thing you may gnaw on while sinking back a beer or seven.
I like the way the sardine-sized fish are lined up from biggest to smallest, like the kids in the Sound of Music.
The ingredients list on the package is useless. It lists "fish", edible oil, salt, and soy sauce. I can see and taste the unmentioned chilli and there are other flavours in there, too.
In the pursuit of scientific based knowledge, I bought a pack and munched them down with a gallon of the aforementioned Liquan beer. They are fine. I would up the chilli content and even the salt level. Or the beer.
Those 6 cost me ¥12 which is USD $1.79, € 1.62, £27.80 (since the result of that idiotic referendum).
Did I mention that I don't like Yangshuo much?
