Posts from the ‘What to Eat’ Category

Western Sichuan

Chain restaurants and hotels aren’t necessarily top dining choices in the US, but in much of Asia there’s nothing wrong with them. And the malls aren’t half-bad either, as I found out with Western Sichuan.

I didn’t expect to go hungry on vacation, it never happens, but Beijing really messed with me. I kept falling asleep around 6pm and waking up in the middle of the night, which caused me to miss two potential dinners because I couldn’t get out of my painfully hard bed. Dining on the fruit left in our room every day wasn’t what I had in mind for Chinese food.

I also never thought I’d be up and at the bus terminal to get to the Great Wall by the 11am cut off (I rarely get out of bed before 10am out of free will) on a Saturday but I was so screwed up that we were left our hotel by 7am. Coffee wasn’t to be found anywhere along the way but we did pick up a two bings from a window we passed. I didn’t realize that starchy disk was going to have to sustain me for the next eight hours.

The Great Wall scarred me enough (no one understands why I found the stairs and heights so frightening and I can’t be bothered to try and articulate it again), the $12 bus ride was borderline traumatic too (we originally thought we’d pay the $25 or so each way that I heard taxis would charge, but in practice I had no idea how to hire one since the language barrier was so thick).

 
No one ever said the face of fear would be pretty. Just being that close to the opening in the wall almost induced pants-crapping.

Being the most foreign, a gay German twosome, a non-Chinese-speaking Asian couple from San Diego and James and I were all a bit lost during the ride and even after our arrival at Badaling. We were all paranoid we were going to get left behind. Then the girl who was apparently hosting this trip got in front of the bus and proceeded to do an ear-splitting spiel in rapid-fire Mandarin via microphone that lasted over half an hour. I thought I was going to lose my mind or at least go deaf. It induced the Germans sitting behind us to mutter under their breath in English, no less, “holy hell, please shut the fuck up.”

Then I got my first whiff of stinky tofu. Wow, I thought I was tough—I’ve never understood the hullabaloo with durian—but the festering body part stench started taking its toll on my resolve. At first I thought I was just smelling dirty hair wafting around, and I was, then I got a whiff of decaying corpse and prayed that it was actually food. It was.

After futzing around on the Great Wall for a bit, then deciding I’d seen enough, I would’ve been happy to find one of those evil American chains like Starbucks to grab a coffee and heck, possibly a red bean scone, but I saw no such thing. Hunger had set in by afternoon and all I saw was corn on the cob, roasted sweet potatoes and a ramshackle food court permeated by the aroma of stinky tofu. Argh, I resorted to the apple in my bag and I rarely eat fruit by choice. We Blackberried Starbucks and Great Wall like crazy trying to pinpoint its location and only came up with impassioned anti-corporate rants, no hard details. Thanks for nothing, internets.

It doesn’t take long for leg pains, general malaise and hunger to take a turn for the worse. On the winding journey back into the city I deliriously imagined the bright, shiny food court-plus at Oriental Plaza (there are way more dining choices than listed on their website) near our hotel. We made it there by late afternoon and I was ravenous. Ah…lamb curry puffs: awesome. Beard Papa? I got a puff for later. Oh, and I also popped into BreadTalk where I ogled miniature Hello Kitty cheesecakes. We were overwhelmed with choice for the main event.

Instead of patronizing the food court proper, we picked a peripheral sit-down restaurant. Would mall Sichuan suck? No way. I don’t know if the food tasted better because we were so hungry, but I can fairly say that what might’ve been mediocre by Chinese standards was up there with NYC’s best (which are slim pickings). Not being able to eat leftovers the next day, as is my usual way, we tempered our urge to over order.

Chile oil rules. This cold chicken dish pushed the boundaries of mouth-numbing. I like the ma la tingle, but this was more of a creeping wallop that seemed to affect the sides of the tongue then trickled down the throat. I’m not honestly sure why this is a desirable sensation while eating and why it plays such a role in one region’s cuisine. It does create a fun trick on the palate where beverages like beer or soda taste much sweeter after swallowing a bite of food teeming with Sichuan peppercorns.

Our tamer fresh bacon with chiles is similar to the “enhanced pork” at Spicy & Tasty in Flushing. We probably should’ve also ordered a vegetable to cut all of the richness and spice but two items were plenty. As you can see from the photos, portions are similar to what you’d get at a Chinese restaurant here. I was under the impression that servings would be smaller but that really didn’t turn out to be the case.

This was intended as late lunch but became our only real meal of the day since I fell asleep like an hour later and never made it to Hot Loft, a modern take on hot pot dining, I had scheduled for Saturday night. Jet lag really put a kink in my planned gluttony. 

Western Sichuan * Dong Chang'an Dajie 1, Beijing, China

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Din Tai Fung

1/2  This was our first restaurant meal in Beijing, and I realize it’s mixed up to be eating soup dumplings in a city not known for them, especially when a Shanghai visit is only a few days off. And it’s even more mixed up to eat a Shanghai specialty at a Taiwanese chain that’s branched all the way to L.A. But Din Tai Fung is highly regarded and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Plus, we were foreigners so we could do whatever we wanted. Well, at least that’s what one of James’s Chinese coworkers told him when he asked about etiquette and making restaurant reservations in particular. I love dubious information from Chinese living in America. This same coworker was also horrified at my hotel choice in Shanghai, Old House Inn, which she originally thought was James’s idea because no female would pick  a place like that (I choose all the hotels and restaurants when we travel—I guess that makes me the decider? And while I’m all for splurging on meals, I’m stingy with lodging. I don’t need luxury, coddling or spa treatments, but I hate ugly and generic too. It’s not always easy finding something boutiquey under $120 night, my rough limit for hotels in Asia). “Five star all the way” was how she described her mode of travel. “Five star all the way” and “we’re foreigners, we can do whatever we want” became the catch phrases of China vacation 2007.

Not knowing Beijing for shit, we had a heck of a time finding this place even armed with a map. We tried the subway, which isn’t so bad despite what guidebooks tell you. Not to be all proud and mighty, but if you ride the subway in NYC every day you’re fairly desensitized to supposedly off-putting things like crowds, buying tickets from machines and transferring lines.

Though, I will say that a full train by NYC standards is not so in Beijing. We crammed in one that by my reckoning was at capacity, packed enough that here a rider would just wait for the next one. But in China that does not prevent people from pushing your back with much more force than one would expect from such small frames and squeezing in another five humans. With bikes that fit through impossibly precarious spaces on the road and taxis maneuvering through traffic, missing pedestrians’ legs by inches, I couldn’t help but think of Chinese as mice burrowing everywhere unscathed. I’m hyper aware of personal space so it was mystifying.

We trudged on a busy road for a while, then meandered through some back streets, not hutongs per se, and took a shortcut through a housing project, which ended at a fenced-off canal. I could see what I thought must be Din Tai Fung (there wasn’t any signage, at least not in English) across the water and parallel street. It was much fancier than I’d anticipated; this was no hole in the wall dumpling joint. People on bikes were walking their vehicles through a little open section in the metal fence (once again squeezing through smallness—they could’ve just opened the gate, it looked like) so we popped through, too.

I’ll freely admit that I’m not a xiaolongbao connoisseur at all. I’ve never been to Joe’s Shanghai, in fact I’ve only eaten them in New York maybe twice. I still think it would be safe to say that Din Tai Fung’s version is exemplary, if only because of the insane thinness of the dumpling skins.

pork soup dumpling

And just like unnecessary subway warnings for tourists, I don’t get all the caveats that go along with eating soup dumplings. You bite a little hole, suck out the broth and eat the thing. It’s not really that messy or complicated. Oh, and you dip the delicate package in black vinegar laced with julienned ginger first. You kind of have to eat them fast, we made it through eight and then the last two in the steamer had cooled down enough to start sticking to the bottom. There’s nothing worse than a soup dumpling bursting before you can get it on your spoon.

hairy crab dumpling

We ordered a batch of pork dumplings and another of hairy crab with roe. There was something very pristine about these little buns, despite their juiciness. In a way, the pork almost seemed more appropriate being simple rather than luxurious. We ate all twenty no problem.

Orange flavored pumpkin slices were kind of unusual. I expected a softer texture, but I’m fairly certain the squash was raw. James isn’t really a picky eater at all, as far as picky eaters go, but he’s not into organ meat which was kind of unfortunate. I love cold, spicy appetizers made with tendon, tripe, jellyfish, tongue, any of that. Pumpkin slices are what you get when you’re trying to steer clear of weirdo meats.

I’d read something about red bean buns for dessert, but I didn’t see them on the menu. When I asked about them, well, I experienced my first China mishap: an outrageously large portion of red bean ice. Yikes. I’m not opposed to less than sweet Asian treats, but this was way too much for two to pick at.

Din Tai Fung also introduced us to a few quirks of Chinese dining that existed at every single restaurant we dined at bar our two most expensive meals:

1. A ticket with your order is either left on the table or put in a slot along the table and gets pulled out and scrutinized by various staff members maybe every five minutes. Nothing changes, nothing extra has been ordered, but everyone seems very concerned with double checking. Or maybe I totally misunderstood what they were doing.

2. You put your jacket over the back of your chair and someone comes along with a nylon cover that fits over the whole thing. The coat protector is way easier than a coat check.

3.  You only get one menu, and this was the case at all restaurants high end and low. I suspect it's because one diner is meant to act as host and order everything for everyone but it did take getting used to.

Din Tai Fung * 24 Xinyuanxili Zhongjie, Beijing, China

Exterior photo from Din Tai Fung. Mine has cars in it so it's less attractive, though it's notable that the professional one also looks gray and gloomy. I think Beijing just looks like that.

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