No rice!

After a good solid meal of ten "lamb-on-a-stick"s and four "duck-heart-on-a-stick"s, something to soak up the meat is often good. This being China, a simple bowl of rice seemed the best and easiest option. So, in search of this basic staple, I went into a nearby restaurant, where a few people were being served food.

The conversation went as follows:

"Could I have a bowl of rice please?"
"Don't have it."

Stunned silence..

"This is a Chinese restaurant, right?"
"Correct."
"I'd really like some rice."
"Don't have it."

By this time, I'd noticed a large bowl of steaming rice on one of the tables. Pointing to it, I ventured:

"Really? I can see the rice on that table. Can I have a bowl of that?"

The owner's look was rather grumpy at this point.

"Takeaway?"
"Fine."

So she stormed off, fetching my food. She didn't offer a single word for the rest of the transaction.


I've come across two possible explanations for this strange behaviour:
1. She was brought up to dislike foreigners ("white devils").
2. She didn't want me to occupy a table in her almost-empty restaurant for such a low fee.
Surely it's rather more important to grant someone a single bowl of rice, though! As for her lying, that's pretty much a part of modern life. Telling a lie - in daily life or as part of business - isn't really so much of a big deal.

Meats on a stick

Meats on a stick

Eating various meats on a stick is a great way to pass time. Lamb on a stick (yang rou chuan, 羊肉串) was the first meal I ordered on my own! Meat on a stick sellers can be found everywhere! The style of cooking often comes from the Xinjiang province in the west, which is very Muslim (relatively speaking). This is a picture of an outdoor meat on a stick restaurant; you pick what you want, and then it's barbecued over hot embers, a nice fragrant spicy thing added, and (optionally) spice (la, 辣) is burned in too.
I have no idea what most of this stuff is, you can definitely see pig trotters and tails, duck hearts, fish chunks, various whole fish, eggs, jellyfish (on the right next to the larger eggs), and chicken feet. Now there's a sexy meal to get your girl to chew on..
Just before we saw this, we had a big meal, with plenty of beef on a stick, lamb on a stick, and my current favourite duck-heart-on-a-stick (it's really something!). Our restaurant had a small 3-wall tent made out of plastic sheeting and a couple of fold out bences and tables, with a narrow portable grate for cooking on, outside in the cold (it was much warmer indoors!). As I was finishing, a young couple of about 20 sat down, and the guy brought out a 500ml bottle of baijiu (Chinese rice wine - always over 50%) then proceeded to pour his petite bashful girlfriend a paper cupful to the brim, and another for himself! Insane.

Caramel Strawberries

Caramel Strawberries

Around most towns in China, there are vendors selling hawthorn fruit stacked on a stick and coated with crunchy and sticky caramel (you can see one just outside Smart Noshery Makes You Slobber - the vertical red sticks toward the bottom left). Well, over Christmas, we found a delicious variation on the theme; as strawberries were in season (£2 would buy you about 5kg), you could pick up a set up very plump and juicy strawberries on a stick, coated in the same crispy caramel, with a hawfruit at the bottom to secure the whole thing. Delicious!

Deep fried scorpion

It's said by some that the Chinese will eat anything. They'll certainly serve it up for idiot foreigners and boyishly proud men to devour! A market stall (at the same market where sugar dragons were found) was serving various deep fried insects. Having heard that starfish was not the nicest of dishes, I tried scorpions - one stick of little ones, and one stick with a big black one on.





The stings look horrendous! I was quite worried that there would be some venom left in there, or that it would gouge your tongue while chewing on it. There's only one way to find out! The chefs courteously deep fried the shiny-carapaced creatures (which were of course already dead) and after waiting for them to cool, I carefully bit one of the small ones. It tasted slightly bitter, slightly burnt, and was very crunchy. There's nothing to it!

The big black one was slightly chewier, and the meat in the pincers isn't so hot. The best thing about this food is the looks you get from locals while grinning and commenting "Hao chi!"



- delicious!