Shilin

This is officially my last weekend in Yunnan, and I shall treat everyone by doing a few posts that have nothing to do with food! It's partly due to the lack of camera, but also I'm truthfully getting a little sick of the repetitive food here now. Plus I've been trying to avoid chillis because it gives me 熱氣 (hot air, apparently it makes me cough), which means there's not a lot of new stuff I can eat anyway!

Today I went off to 石林 Shilin, literally a stone forest about 2 hours out of Kunming. There are literally acres and acres of karst stones poking through the earth, some as tall as 30 metres high:

Although it's well known in Yunnan, I'm surprised this place isn't more well known in China. I was rather mesmerised by the place, helped by the fact that the cherry blossom is just blooming here, who needs Tokyo eh?

That is not to say that Shilin hasn't had its fair share of the Chinese tourist trail treatment. The entry fee is ludicrously expensive at Y140 per person, the paths are beautifully pathed, and there are tour groups lemminging behind those compulsory little tour group flags. There is also the fun of going round 'famous' stones which have been given silly names like 'Moon-Gazing Rhino' and 'Wife Waiting for Her Husband', which really does test the imagination.

But if you just walk a little past the tour groups, it is amazing how easy it is to be completely by yourself with not a soul insight. It reminded me of the slightly eerie quiet of Ayers Rock, but I thought it was a lot more charming (I will stop dissing Australia sooner or later). I also really like the folklore story about how the place came about. Geologically, the area of Shilin used to be a big mountain range, and the story goes that the gods broke up the mountains in order to give lovers a labyrinth of privacy. Aaaaah...

Chengdu part 2

We loved 錦里 Jinli in Chengdu so might, I thought it warranted a long post all by itself. Definitely the best street food 小吃 I've had since I left Hong Kong, and it was a bit ridiculous how happy we were leaving the place.

Jinli is basically a gentrified historic district, a tourist attraction next to the Wuhou Temple and Shrine in Chengdu, but it has been done so sympathetically and with so much thought, you'd think you weren't in China (Lijiang should take note on how to make your town look interesting). The district is chock-a-block with little shops and stalls, but no two seem to sell the same thing, and there was definitely a lot 風味 about the place. I'm not a shopping person, but it was a joy to walk around here.

But we had come here for the 好吃街, wonderfully named 'Tasty Street', and again, no two stalls seemed to serve the same thing. We really regretted having a big breakfast back at the hotel, but we still more or less tried everything the street had to offer. Far too much to put on here, I include only the yummy/interesting things to eat. (If you're going to visit, definitely don't try the 張飛牛肉, there is an entertaining 張飛 lookalike outside, but the expensive 牛肉 is a waste of calories).

We were still in search of the perfect bowl of dan dan mein, and found a place which specialised in it as well as 蕎面 buckwheat noodles- most of the places had English translations which were so bad that I include for entertainment value:

The buckwheat noodles were pressed from fresh straight into the pot, but still lacked the chew that we were expecting - all round a little disappointing:

But the dan dan mein was pretty good here - definitely the best we've had in Chengdu, but still not as good as that gorgeous bowl I had in Lijiang:

Keeping in spirit with looking for things made on the spot, we found a little stall making 波絲糖, which I've seen translated as beard candy before - basically very fine shreds of sugar wound together - very moreish even for unsweet people like me:

There was one stall which permanently had people queuing outside, and also had gold plaques commemorating its awards, and this probably was the most Sichuanese thing we ate (definitely the most mala), 綠豆涼卷 and 豆腐連子:

Away from the street, we also had a disappointing sit-down meal at a proper cafe. But we did try their 棒棒雞, Bang Bang Chicken, always the dish which caused giggles when I worked in Chinese takeaways in my youth. I actually no recollection of how they cooked this back in takeaways, but I know I've never really eaten it before - very 香, a mixture of sesame with the typical mala flavours:

Actually, we all agreed the very best thing we ate was not actually Sichuanese, but instead were the Uighur lamb skewers which are available everywhere you go - or more accurately, the red powder (probably a mixture of chilli, paprika, and MSG we agreed it was) that dusted it on top. We were always way too excited about eating them to actually take a picture first though - but imagine big chunks of lamb, with a nice layer of fat, deep fried, then roasted, then dusted with the magic powder. Mmmmm - I might actually go and find some more before I head to the airport...

Chengdu part 1

A trip to Sichuan 四川 during my time in China was pretty compulsory for a foodie: 食在中國，味在四川，'China is the place for food, Sichuan is the place for flavour'. My weekend with Caris and Rosy to Chengdu 成都, the capital of the province, definitely lived up to its foodie expectations, and we were also surprised at how much the city offered.

Given that it is one of the big gun cities of China, we all found Chengdu to be pretty calm and collected place. We stayed right in the centre of town near TianFu Square 天府廣場, and on the first night spotted people doing aerobics out in the open, you can imagine Paul Merton getting overexcited and joining in.

We'd all seen pandas before, so avoided what most people come to Chengdu for, and instead went to Qingcheng Shan 青城山 about 60km from the city centre. Despite the rather steep entrance fee (Y90) and steep hills, this was a gorgeous place to spend some time wondering around the holy Taoist mountains. The area also boasts a natural oxygen 'high' - apparently the ions mean that the oxygen is more pure than normal - I've forgotten too much GCSE Chemistry to really understand.

Despite it being the place for Chengdu daytrippers, we managed to find some really good food here. The area is famous for its preserved pork 臘肉, very morish, but really very fatty too - yes, the picture below is of slices of pig fat:

We also had some very good (but rather ugly so I didn't take a picture) gingko chicken soup 白果燉雞. Accompanied by some simple stir-fried wild vegetables, we managed to have an entire meal in Sichuan with no chillis!

That evening, then, we had to go and find something to tease our 麻辣 tastebuds. We ended up at 公館菜 on 青華路. Outside, it boasts that it is 成功人的選擇, 'the choice for successful people', and we were all mightily impressed by its authentic Sichuanese fare. And we had all the following for Y70 each. First off, some cold dishes - the first was some kind of shredded bamboo shoot 筍, lovely flavours of sesame oil and the deep-fried broad beans on top:

Next, one of my favourite Sichuanese dishes, 夫妻肺片, which should be pig's lungs in a spicy numb sauce, but this one seemed to actually be meat, tasty, but disappointed there no actual lung:

Best dish of the night was the duck - I'm not sure what the Chinese name was, but it was basically duck with the crispiest skin ever, with a layer of glutinous rice at the bottom, which had been fried also so that there was a crisp bottom too. There is still some leftovers sitting next to me which I'm trying desperately not to tuck into:

We also had fried shredded potato with salted duck eggs, some regional wild mushrooms, and dan dan mein (of course). The mein here though was super disappointing - no chew to the noodles at all! But at least we felt like we'd ventured into some new ground in Sichuan food, and not all of it mala! The restaurant is also quite cute in getting each table to participate in a dice game - they give you 8 dice, if you manage to throw a certain combination, you get a discount! Rosy somehow managed to throw five 3's, and got us 20% off! Woo!

Non-food wise, we also went to visit 杜甫草堂, which when literally translated to 'Thatched Cottage of Du Fu' does not sound very exciting. 杜甫 Du Fu, as I discovered (I know so little Chinese history) is a Tang dynasty poet who lived in Chengdu for 4 years, and during this time, built a modest thatched cottage. The site is now an important Tang archaeological site, and even if you know nothing of Chinese poetry or archaeology, the grounds are so gorgeous and comfortable, it was a joy to wander around. Chengdu can definitely disguise itself from being the frantic Chinese city.

Lijiang

Lijiang 麗江 is the must-go place in Yunnan, and was really one of the main reasons for why I chose to study in Kunming. Unfortunately, I found it to be one of the most overrated places I’ve visited in a long long time.

The problem lies in its popularity. The government have obviously put a lot of effort into making Lijiang Old Town 麗江古城 an attractive tourist destination. The streets are ridiculously clean, the canals that flow through the town are so clear that carp fish seem to thrive in them, and there are gorgeously designed rubbish bins at every corner. As a result, literally thousands of Chinese tourists descend upon this little place, and the narrow streets of the Old Town are often crammed with people.

The crowdedness in itself isn’t too annoying – I come from Kowloon after all – but along with popularity inevitably comes overcommercialisation and rip-off merchants. It was actually pretty difficult to find places to eat here, counter-intuitively, because most shop fronts in the Old Town are tacky souvenir shops, everywhere you turn there is a desperate attempt to sell you something. The classic example was when we asked at the official tourist information centre about where we could find a massage (you can tell I was with peeps from the Hong Kong office) – the lady behind the counter actually left her position and escorted us to what was obviously her mate’s shop!! Even more ridiculous, the average beer in a bar is 40 RMB unless you haggle hard – that’s more than at home!

Don’t get me wrong – I think the Old Town is beautiful, and I guess it is the Chinese entrepreneurial spirit that has caused all this, so I shouldn’t really be complaining. And whenever you manage to get a little lost and venture into the tight alleyways, it really is a charming place, Roger is particularly right that you can just imagine them filming some oldie worldie TVB programme in the backstreets. The view from the top of the hill looking down over the Old Town is also worth the breathless trek up (Lijiang is elevated at 2400m):

I found it harder to find cutesy little places to eat in Lijiang compared to Dali, but there were still a few highlights. The best probably being when I got lost in the South of the Old Town (Lonely Planet’s map conveniently places Sifang Square, the main focal point of the Old Town, in completely the wrong place), and found a little Chengdu-ese place, and in preparation for my trip to Chengdu next week, I had to have a dan dan mein 擔擔麵 (keen readers will know I’m obsessed with dan dan mein). It was a husband and wife and daughter establishment, and the husband was making the noodles from fresh:

The mein itself was so so good – the noodles very fresh, lovely texture, set off by a sauce that had some sesame seeds running through it – not particularly spicy, but very 香. 5 RMB for a huge portion (you can also opt for the ‘add a hat’ version for an extra 1 RMB – which means adding a fried egg on top for those who haven’t watched that silly Cantonese movie from the 1980’s with 周星馳 and 吳君如).

During our stay in Lijiang, we had a mini daytrip to go horse-riding in 美泉. We were treated to a little ride on a steel gondola, where we had some lovely whitebaity fish grilled directly on a boat. We also went to have rainbow trout nearby at 山泉漁府 – it was a bit ridiculously expensive at 150 RMB per jin (about 300 RMB for an average sized fish – even more than rainbow trout at home!), but we did watch them catch it, and it was very fresh.

We also found ourselves in the Lijiang version of Prague Café for breakfast – the owners must think I’m weird, given how much I also go to the Kunming one. We were all very impressed with the Naxi 納西 breakfast – eggs with a huge potato pancake (very good, crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside), Naxi ham (very good, lovely texture), toast (weirdly sweet) and Naxi cheese (hmmm, not a fan):

I end with what I think was probably another tourist rip off. Right outside our hotel was a little stand which always had people queuing, serving 青蛙餅, literally frog biscuit, a kind of biscuity/bun thing stuffed with cold sour/spicy rice noodles. We never did figure out why it was called that, I wouldn’t put it pass them naming it something strange like that just to attract the crowds. Given that we didn’t see any other stall selling it, I wonder about its authenticity as a specialty 特產 of Lijiang.

Wow, what a huge post! And so much bile! Lijiang had an effect on me, definitely, mainly allowing me to reflect on how lucky I have been to be able to do so much off-the-beaten-track travelling in the last few months (Sotik in Kenya being probably the most interesting!). Chengdu next week, where I shall be reunited with my long-lost foodie/travel mate, Caris :)

Dali

On the spur of the moment (very P of me), I decided to go to Dali 大理 for the weekend, which is a convenient 5 hours away from Kunming. Poor Dali has been battered recently from the usual backpackers' trail, superceded by Lijiang, but it does benefit from being surrounded by mountains and being right by Erhai Lake.

I arrived very early into Dali, when most of the town was still sleepy, but I found a lovely little place to have breakfast. I'm not sure what it was, someone else was eating it and it looked good, probably some kind of rice thread noodles 米線 - not as spicy or oily as the ones I'm used to in Kunming, but a great start to the day:

I only had basically one and a half days to explore, so the first day hired a bike, and went on a big bike ride around the lake, and am so glad I did. A lot of the locals were staring at me riding along, wondering what the hell I was doing, but it was gorgeous to get away from the tourist trail and just bike through lots of little villages, seeing all the villages doing their farming. After about 2 hours at a gentle pace, I arrived in the town of 喜州, a Bai minority town locally famous for its traditional Bai architecture. So pretty, it even inspired me to take a non-food picture:

I didn't stay here that long, but long enough to eat their specialty, the 破酥粑粑, roughly translated to flakey skin 'baba', a bread with a flakey crust, stuffed with spring onions and minced meat, or there is also a sugary sweet version. The savoury version is not unlike a stodgy version of a 蔥油餅 - I really liked the flakey outer crust, but found the inside stodge a bit hard-going:

The reason why I impulsively went to Dali was because I keep spotting little street carts serving Dali cold noodles 大理涼麵 in Kunming, and thought I need to try it in Dali itself. I must say this was a food discovery and a half, I couldn't stop eating them after my first bowl. The concept does sound a bit off - clammy cold noodles doesn't sound appetising - but with the aid of some vinegar, soy, chilli, a few peanuts, and some coriander, it is so refreshing, very 開胃! My first bowl was at a place which has multiple branches in the non-guilo bit of Renmin Lu, which seemed famous for their 雞涼米線:

I indulged in another bowl at the top of Cangshan just outside the temple, this time with 麵條 wheat noodles rather than rice threads 米線 - must say I liked it better than the 米線, had a bit more chew in each noodle (and probably helped by the fantastic sunshine I was sitting in):

I met two British Indian medical students from UCL during my stay in Dali, so so so nice to speak to British accents, and we inevitably found ourselves in Bad Monkey, a bar run by a couple of guys from East London. But their experience made me realise how much the backpackers must miss out on by having to rely on the foreign cafes that serve a variety of both Western and Chinese food. I went to the supposedly recommended Bamboo Cafe in the guilo bit of Renmin Lu for dinner one evening, which supposedly served authentic Bai cuisine. How wrong I was! I ended up with very Cantonesey red braised tofu and prawns with vegetables - so disappointing!

I inevitably woke up on Sunday morning with a bit of a hangover (it's Kaj's fault for mentioning jage-bombs to me), and spicy food just did not appeal for once. But I remembered there was a 北方 Northern dumpling restaurant just down the road, and 餛飩 wontons sounded like a good hangover cure - pure, light, cleansing! The wontons themselves were nothing to write home about, but I really liked the broth they came in. There were little bits of seaweed floating in it, and also these cute little miniature dried prawns - very very tasty:

The non-food and mildly interesting spot (if you're part of Uncle B's wider family) was the awesome combination of shops I saw in Dali - in Berlin, we saw the infamous antique shop that was also a pet shop - in Dali, I spotted a travel agency that was also a place for you to shower (!), and also a travel agency which was also gave massages. I guess there is an element of customer-sharing (us tourists do like to shower after all)...

Next week takes me to Lijiang to see Roger and some newer members of Uncle B's family.

Chinese New Year

This year was the first year I had a proper Chinese New Year in China in many many many years, and Yinne very kindly invited me to Beijing to spend it with her extended family.

A lot of Chinese families spend New Year's Eve making dumplings, and given that I was in Beijing, obviously we had to do it. It is one of my favourite things to do with my mum and dad, so I was pleased to spend the evening wrapping away. Here were our creations - please note that the especially pretty pleated ones were mine :p

And the lovely family working hard :)

And given that it was New Year's, I was literally fed every minute of the day!!! This was the small (!) selection of snacks available when we were wasting away the evening playing mahjong - pistachios, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, strawberries, grapes, oranges, pear and apple, and I think some walnuts, sweets, and biscuits joined the party a few minutes later:

I was fed some very very nice buns for breakfast one of the days. I'll have to ask Yinne again what they're called, a kind of non juicy siulongbao:

My one big request whilst in Beijing was to have Beijing duck, mainly because all my blooming Mandarin textbooks always use it as an example of where people go for dinner with friends!!! I'd eaten it once before in Beijing about 6 years ago, and remember it being so greasy, but good! Again, Yinne's lovely family came up trumps and treated us to a lovely duck meal at their family's favourite duck place, 鴨王烤鴨, literally the King of Duck. I feel fat just remembering that meal!:

It was probably the best Chinese New Year's I've had in a long time. I especially loved the literally non stop fireworks right outside the house for about 5 hours before and after midnight on New Year's Day, and seeing people carrying huge boxes of fireworks with cigarettes dangling from their mouths. Only in China!