DaLi: Jumping Off the Plate

Last night I asked my hotel where I should go to try good local food, and they suggested an area with lots of Bai restaurants a few blocks from our hotel.

 

I walked down there with Mark - many restaurants display all their ingredients (mostly veggies, but also fish, mushrooms, etc) outside the restaurant, so it's easy to point and choose. We ran into two German women who were also looking for food, though they were more wary of the "authentic" stuff...but they came along with us to the place we chose.

 

There was already a big table of Chinese people at the restaurant, and when I went over to investigate what they ordered, I tasted a cold pork dish and a chicken dish from their table. I ended up ordering the the pork dish, not really knowing what it was - then we went to the front of the restaurant and pointed to other items. I chose some mushrooms - there are several types here....and also some purple veggies (like purple spinach), and some garlic stalks.

 

The four of us shared these four dishes. The mushrooms were stir fried together with chilies, and they were really excellent. I'm not even sure what kind of mushrooms they all were. The garlic stalks were cooked with sliced pork filet, and the purple "greens" were sauteed with garlic and a bit of chili. The cold pork dish was pretty good, but I was the only one who ate the "pork" part - I asked someone at the restaurant to write down the dish for me, since it wasn't on the menu. Later at the hotel I got it translated - it was pig ears! But I thought it was pretty good, and nice and spicy. With one beer, rice and tea, the meal was plenty for the four of us, and cost about 10 US dollars.

 

Just before leaving, a Chinese couple sitting next to us ordered a cold dish that arrived at their table - it was a salad of tiny prawns. I glanced over as we were getting up to leave, and saw that the prawns were still alive, and jumping out of the salad! The waitress brought them a plate to cover up the dish to prevent the food from splashing and bouncing onto the table. This freaked out the Germans, who ran out of the restaurant, but I looked at the dish curiously, so they offered me a bite. I took a prawn that wasn't moving, and bit off the tail. It mostly tasted like the chili sauce it was served in....but I think it's the first time I've ever eaten still-moving seafood (or in this case river/lakefood)

 

DaLi is nice - we stayed in town last night, at a nice new hostel. It's pretty touristy, a lot like Yangshuo, but pleasant nonetheless. Later we're heading up to the mountains to stay up there instead of in the town...then I'll probably be parting ways with Mark and heading west toward Burma!

 

More soon