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Published: March 5th 2009
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Street Vendor food!
On the left is the vat that the veggies sit in and the right are the bins you get your veggies out of. So Hua and I venture outside the University walls a few times a week to experience real Sichuan cuisine, which is said to be the best food in China. A place we have gone twice now (and will continue to go a few times a week the rest of my time here) is a place that I cannot pronounce but it's a heck of a lot of fun! The guy has a little cart on the street and a bucket of broth. You take wooden, woven ladle and fill it up with goodies! There is tofu, bean curd, mushrooms (4 varieties?!) zucchini, cauliflower, seaweeds, butternut squash (my fav), cabbage, a few different types of noodles, lotus root, and a few other things that I have no idea what they are. So you put as much as you possibly can in your woven ladle--the trick is you take the thin slices of certain veggies (cabbage we find is to be the best) and you build walls around the outside of your ladle, specifically up above the rim of the ladle! This maximizes your veggie consumption. The first time we went we weren't very good at this, but the second time we went
China Sidewalk
You can see the tiny tables that we sit at while we eat our soup. we were able to increase our veggies by at least 45%. So then you had over your ladle to the guy who then empties the contents into a larger metal ladle, and submerges it into a vat of broth (which is seasoned as the night goes on by all the boiling veggies and other magic he puts in). You wait between 5-7 minutes, then he calls your number out (asks if you want it spicy or not, I choose not), and bam, you are served a self designed bowl of veggie soup! It is delicious, I don't know what he puts in the broth, perhaps some crack, but Hua and I are hooked! The funny part about eating there is you sit at these tiny tables, meant for 3 year olds, and I surely do not fit. So the whole time I'm shifting my legs around-of course bumping the table and causing out precious soup to overflow. Oh, and even though it is soup. You use chopsticks--and at all the places I have been, there is a roll of toilet paper at the table and that is what you use for napkins...and then you toss it on the ground. Total
Hot Pot
This is what your hot pot looks like cost for this goodness is 3.50 Yuan (which is about .53 cents)
So a very popular thing to do around here is to go have 'Hot Pot.' Many of my students have mentioned it to me, some have invited me, but I never really understood what it was till last night. So, you arrive at the restaurant and there is a hole in the middle of the table (for the hot boiling vat of broth). Hua and I got half spicy and half mild broth-watching out for my fragile foreigner taste buds. Then you go to another room and pick out a bunch of veggies (or meats if you so desire) but everything is on sticks. So you take your tray bull of veggies on a stick back to your table, wait for you pot to become hot (and boiling) and then you submerge the veggies in the broth, wait a few minutes, take it out and eat them. But whatever they make the broth with (again, crack must be a key ingredient) it is delightfully tasty! The entire dinner you sit there dipping your goods in the pot and blowing your nose (because the spicy side is so
Hot Pot veggie/met room
This is the room you select all your veggies or meats from. good, but hot!). We dipped butternut squash (which they actually call pumpkin here), zucchini, tofu, potatoes, lotus root, spinach, cabbage, bean sprouts, mushrooms...lots of good stuff. So after you dip it and eat it, you toss your stick into a bucket. At the end of your meal you call the waitress over and she counts the sticks and that’s how you pay. That entire meal was 25 Yuan--it was 26, but Hua negotiated 1 Yuan off (which is about $3.50 for two people).
So, that is my amazing food experiences so far. Lots of veggies which pleases me greatly!
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