thread of pictures of real chinese food

mmmmmmmmmmmmm

http://i.imgur.com/bBzSZ.jpg

i am technically allowed to post itt since i briefly lived in shanghai, i guess, but since i'm a complete idiot when it comes to food i will refrain. i will only state the obvious, which is that real chinese food is pretty much the best food ever. i really miss it.

everybody is allowed to post itt! Z S what was the best thing you had in shanghai

I'm invited to go to a meeting in Xi'an in a few months; should I go? I'm kinda squeamish about traveling that far, but I've heard the food's fantastic, & that might be enough to tip the balance.

xi'an is okay, I found the soldiers part to be pretty boring, idk what specialties xi'an has but pretty much any restaurant you go to will have really great chinese food

sorta have to decide whether to go through Beijing or Shanghai on the flight in; which is going to be less bewildering qua getting great food, when I don't speak any Mandarine & will be alone?

how long would you be staying?

oh, my memory is awful, so i can't remember the "best" thing, but i do remember loving the easy access to xiaolongbao, the Shanghai style DUMPLINGS! that are filled with broth:

http://www.cityspoonful.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/DUMPLINGS!.jpg

Also, street food! i used to grab a Cōng Yóu Bǐng on the way to work EVERY DAY, and never got sick of it:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WuCYra3-fYw/S_epPaFaNtI/AAAAAAAAAx4/ReJmmPhYtsw/s400/_MG_0513.jpg

those are both really simple things and don't do chinese food justice, but i was obsessed with both.

the conference in Xi'an is for like 5 days; I'm thinking of adding a couple of days at the start (or end? too?) in whatever city I connect in. I don't even know if this is a good idea, as I don't know how easy it's gonna be for me to get into town from the airport & then back out to the airport. I'm kinda stressed by the prospect just b/c I've heard that China's pretty unforgiving, even to the experienced traveler.

looooool, the top image broke because the part of the URL that mentioned d-umplin-gs was replaced with DUMPLINGS!!

xiaolongbao:

http://www.chinatownconnection.com/images/xiao_long_bao.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/vcl6w.jpg

mmmmmmm, DUMPLINGS!..

so, so good. bite the top off, suck out the broth, then slip the rest..

this is getting a little sexy

Z S I made some congyoubing today! (葱油饼）well to be accurate my dad made some dough and I froze it and fried it today and it was great. my dad kind of taught me how to make them too and it's pretty nifty actually, there's a reason why they're layered after you fry them

the conference in Xi'an is for like 5 days; I'm thinking of adding a couple of days at the start (or end? too?) in whatever city I connect in. I don't even know if this is a good idea, as I don't know how easy it's gonna be for me to get into town from the airport & then back out to the airport. I'm kinda stressed by the prospect just b/c I've heard that China's pretty unforgiving, even to the experienced traveler.

― Euler, Saturday, March 10, 2012 3:14 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

I think it's probably a wash between BJ and SH - lot of opportunities to get scammed either way. but if you're adventurous I'd go for it!

i make them myself, occasionally, although i'm a bad cook and it's not nearly as good as the real thing. but it's really fun to crack the egg on top of the pancake and then flip it all over.

hah I've never had the egg variation

xps, I found Beijing and Shanghai super-easy to negotiate despite not speaking any Mandarin. Shanghai's probably easier to get in to and out of - iirc Beijing's main airport is a fair distance out and Shanghai has a Maglev connecting the airport to the centre.

Food shouldn't be a problem - they're both international cities with a lot of foreign visitors. Shanghai feels more cosmopolitan and would probably be more manageable in a few days.

Shanghai has a Maglev connecting the airport to the centre.

at the time i was there, it was the fastest one in the world. not sure if that's still true but it's reaaaally fun.

yeah I guess I'm worried about eating at touristy places that aren't great just b/c I don't know my way around & don't speak the language (hold no currency)

I mean I'm in France now & my French isn't great but I eat ridically well b/c I've been here so many times, & I'd love to have a similar experience in China b/c of e.g. this thread but but but

the shanghai maglev caught on fire once!

xp, tbh, you can eat really well by going to a night market and just pointing at things. Lots of less touristy places will still have picture menus.

just want to add that xi'an has deep fucking local food culture. serious food destination imho.

also just spend those extra days in shanghai. take the superfast train out to xi'an.

http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/cn_zgwh/2004-06/28/content_52130.htm

i wish u could all read chinese or there was a good translation of this. great miniessays on shaanxi food by jia pingwa.

<i>They say southerners are meticulous and northerners are crude. If that's true, then northwesterners are even more crude, even more rough. Their language is thick, rich with falling tones. Men are swarthy and it's rare to find a girl with a narrow waist. And the cuisine is vibrant; light on the sugar but heavy on the salt. Ah, this blessed land. Shaanxi! North: the yellow loess plateaus. In the middle: the Wei River plains. Heading south, the Qinling Mountains begin to rise. Looking over the vast banquet of Shaanxi cuisine, most of it seems to come from the palace kitchens of earlier ages, the estates of the Tang bureaucrats, and then from the tables of the commoners, and then the minority peoples of the province add a few dishes, and we get a few of the famous dishes from the city restaurants. It looks like the food of the north, but there are a few differences. Of course, in my hometown (a place that I've played at writing into my fiction), we never saw any great banquets or ate extravagant dishes. But as I've wandered around the province, I've eaten</i> xiaochi <i>like an anthropologist collecting folk songs. Just like folk songs, these</i> xiaochi <i>let you understand a little bit about where they came from. So, as I've got a moment of free time and can put together a sentence or two, I ventured to write down what little I know about each dish. Think of it as an unpaid advertisement, and I'll think of it as a chance to relive the experience of sitting down to eat each dish, a chance to see if I can recall the particular flavor of all those minor delicacies.</i>

FUCK BB CODE

They say southerners are meticulous and northerners are crude. If that's true, then northwesterners are even more crude, even more rough. Their language is thick, rich with falling tones. Men are swarthy and it's rare to find a girl with a narrow waist. And the cuisine is vibrant; light on the sugar but heavy on the salt. Ah, this blessed land. Shaanxi! North: the yellow loess plateaus. In the middle: the Wei River plains. Heading south, the Qinling Mountains begin to rise. Looking over the vast banquet of Shaanxi cuisine, most of it seems to come from the palace kitchens of earlier ages, the estates of the Tang bureaucrats, and then from the tables of the commoners, and then the minority peoples of the province add a few dishes, and we get a few of the famous dishes from the city restaurants. It looks like the food of the north, but there are a few differences. Of course, in my hometown (a place that I've played at writing into my fiction), we never saw any great banquets or ate extravagant dishes. But as I've wandered around the province, I've eaten xiaochi like an anthropologist collecting folk songs. Just like folk songs, these xiaochi let you understand a little bit about where they came from. So, as I've got a moment of free time and can put together a sentence or two, I ventured to write down what little I know about each dish. Think of it as an unpaid advertisement, and I'll think of it as a chance to relive the experience of sitting down to eat each dish, a chance to see if I can recall the particular flavor of all those minor delicacies.

http://www.binglang.info/Storage/FCKPro/Files/%E5%87%89%E7%9A%AE%281%29.jpg

xi'an specialty, liang pi'r

http://img.huashanly.com/1001/1298861573433.jpg

heeeeeeey didn't david chang invent that

; )

<IMG SRC="http://www.dx.gansu.gov.cn/cn/rootimages/2011/05/21/1305852833341099-1305852833343171.jpg";>

羊肉泡motherfuckin馍

god.

http://www.dx.gansu.gov.cn/cn/rootimages/2011/05/21/1305852833341099-1305852833343171.jpg

http://food.chinese.cn/image/attachement/jpg/site2/20110118/0023ae99e1440e9f4de807.jpg

辣子蒜羊血

spicy garlicky lambsblood

meet u in xi'an bro

hell yeah xi'an

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2347/2529658427_a8875b227c.jpg

hah I've never had the egg variation

dayo, are your folks not from TW? It's like a staple there.

Euler, I went to Xi'an 10 (!) years ago (I remember the year vividly because the Giants were in the WS and I had to watch it at same janky time) and the local delicacy of choice, as far as I could determine, is Baked Bun Soaked in Mutton Soup (romanized as Yang Rou Pao Mo). Hopefully they've cleaned up the air since then -- awful smog problem there when I went.

(Another vivid non-food memory is of a kid, probably 6-7 years old, standing alone on the thin median strip waiting to cross through heavy traffic.)

oh man this is helping! I'm sure the air will still be awful but in Xi'an I'd be with locals + Westerners who speak the language / study the culture & go there often. mostly I'm wimpy about making my way in the big cities in the east, but prob I should just do it.

dayo, are your folks not from TW? It's like a staple there.

― Nude Gingrich (Leee), Sunday, March 11, 2012 3:31 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark

nah they are from peking!

i'm sure you'll still find the air obscenely bad.

in the last 10 years, traffic has only got worse + crazy sprawl + it'll be hot and humid and the air will be like parking your car in a sauna and rolling down the windows.

xi'an is not a beautiful city.

http://www.binglang.info/Storage/FCKPro/Files/%E5%87%89%E7%9A%AE%281%29.jpg

wtf is this why don't I have some

tripe?

wheat gluten iirc

it looks spicy and delicious

the broad strips are some kind of 凉粉 I imagine

the brainy looking stuff is 烤麸 I think, a kind of wheat gluten

http://i.imgur.com/So3jq.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/pl9J8.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/1XDE5.jpg