Yangshuo: Shampoodle

I just got back from getting a haircut and wash. Kelly got her hair washed as well, and Leo was there to take some pictures. I was holding Pippy since Kelly was getting her hair rinsed, and I thought I looked pretty ridiculous, getting a shampoo while holding a poodle. So I asked Leo to take a picture.

Yangshuo: Party Cruise

Four days ago I went on a walk up the hill behind the market - the entrance to the trail is just behind Leo and Kelly's house, and from there a staircase leads straight up the mountain. The climb took me about 25 minutes, and at the top there was a fence with a sign saying "Do Not Enter," but the gate was open, so I went in anyway. I saw nobody at all on the hike or at the top. The views of the city below were great.

Three nights ago I went on a party cruise on the Li River to celebrate Tim's birthday. He's an Australian who manages the bar that we always go to. I went with my friend Vivian and also met lots of local expats and teachers. The boat just went up and down the river a bit, and I couldn't see much of the scenery since it was dark. But we took lots of photos, including some that ended up with double images since so many flashes were going off at once.

Yangshuo: Breakfast

On most days, I go to the market early in the morning, so I get an early breakfast either before or after the shopping, and before the cooking classes begin.

 

The typical breakfast foods in Yangshuo are steamed buns and 'mee fan' (rice noodle soup). Both can be found everywhere, even in small villages.

 

There are three places I regularly visit for mee fan. Pam introduced me to the small place in Yima, a village between my house and Yangshuo. Their noodle soups cost 2.5 RMB (about 35 cents) and they are my favorite. Already cooked rice noodles are heated up in boiling water, then drained a placed in a bowl. Next comes chopped meat (I always get roast pork here, and this might be all they have), then pickled green beans and bamboo shoots, crunchy peanuts, a drizzle of a soy-based sauce, and a drizzle of another sauce (salt + oil?) and then a ladleful of broth (pork based). Everything is garnished with fresh chopped scallions, and at the place in Yima, they also put on some bits of fried crispy donut.

 

Every place has a different variation of this soup. At one place in the market, where Pam also brought me, they use soybeans instead of peanuts, and you get to choose your own condiments - they have about 6 kinds of pickles, plus chili flakes of various heat levels....you also get to spoon your own broth into your bowl, so if you want drier noodles, it's an option. Probably this could be done anywhere, but since I don't know how to say that in Chinese, getting to do it myself allows more flexibility.

 

Kelly and Leo prefer a different place in the market, where Kelly always gets soup with kidney and liver. I usually get roast pork here too, but one time I tried the beef tendon which was delicious as well. Both shops in the market have the option of rounded noodles or flat noodles, though it seems like in most places the round noodles are the default. The condiments at Kelly and Leo's favorite place are the best - they have a tomato based salsa (tastes a lot like Mexican salsa) that usually is gone by mid-morning, and they have very nice pickled cucumbers too. The payment system is different here too, since they are quite busy. You first buy a token from a lady outside the shop, then you give the token to the woman serving soup - so if you don't know the system, it can be confusing (luckily Kelly taught me how it works the first time I went, but I saw some Chinese tourists getting all confused).

There are tons of places to get noodle soups - probably over 100 places just in Yangshuo - so I have hardly tried any. But the spot in Yima is my favorite of all of the soup places I've tried - the balance of flavor in the soup is just right; not too salty, not too pickly, not too spicy and not too oily. I also really like their steamed buns, which are two for 1 yuan. In Yima they have three kinds of steamed buns - bao zi: red bean, black sesame and peanut. I like the red bean, but the black sesame and peanut ones are the best - there is only a small amount of filling, and they are mixed with a bit of sugar. I am usually there pretty early, so the buns are fresh and the filling is hot. Really good.

In the market and throughout town there are other kinds of buns - filled with black bean paste, red bean paste, sesame, peanut or pork. There are other types that look like cinnamon buns, but instead of cinnamon it's sweet soy sauce and scallions, so it's savory rather than sweet. Then there are plain buns (no filling), but I don't like these as much. In the market there is a place that sells miniature pork buns - the filling tastes like a dumpling filling (not roast pork - char siu - which is common in Cantonese steamed buns) - and these are four for 1 yuan.

So I frequently buy buns to eat for breakfast in addition to a noodle soup.

Last week, I discovered a new quasi-local breakfast, and I've had it three times now. It's a stand on my way to the market that is run by a guy from Guangdong Province. He has a special steamer to make rice noodle rolls that are a common Cantonese breakfast, although this contraption is a bit more primitive than the rice noodle steamers they had in Hong Kong and Guangzhou. A plate of these costs 3 yuan. To make the rice noodle rolls, they oil a metal tray and then spoon on some liquid rice milk. They top this with scallions, beat up egg, and a bit of lettuce, and then the tray is pushed into the steamer for about 2 minutes. When the tray is pulled out, the rice milk has turned into a white slippery noodle, and they scrape it off the tray and serve it with sweet soy sauce and a salsa made with fresh green chilies. A plate consists of two trayfuls of noodle, with 1 whole egg in the mix. Even though this breakfast isn't common here, it's still local prices and a nice break from noodle soup on days when I'm not in the mood.

So that is breakfast! I often drink coffee as well - the tourist places in town have good coffee, but we also make good coffee in the French press at the cooking schools, so I often just make it myself or have it with the women who work in the kitchen at the school. I once sat at a nice cafe by the river and had a fancy drip coffee for 28 yuan - it was a very nice cup of Yunnan coffee, but it was quite funny that it cost me 7 times more than what I spent on breakfast. More normal price for a good cup of coffee is 12 yuan at a cafe, where I often get to use the internet for free as well.

Hopefully I'll take some pictures of breakfast dishes soon. More soon!
 

Yangshuo: Breaking News: DMP is Not Sick of Chinese Food

Food in China is really good. I have been in Asia for more than 3 weeks, and out of all my meals (approximately 65-80 depending on how you define "meal") only about 5 have been non-Chinese food. And almost everything I've eaten here has been quite good.

 

While I have eaten a lot of local food, I have also eaten plenty of foods from different Chinese regions - Hunan food in Guangzhou, Cantonese and Shanghainese food in Yangshuo, etc. But even in a smaller town like Yangshuo, there is a huge variety of dishes that can be found, and even more that can be prepared using ingredients from the market.

 

So in case anyone was worried that I was getting sick of the food in China, worry no longer. "Chinese Food" is such a broad category that I think it would be impossible for me to get sick of it.

 

Yangshuo: Chelsee's Pictures Part II

Here are some more pictures from Chelsee.

1) Sally steaming the chicken dish at the cooking school.

2) Choosing BBQ meats at the night market in Yangshuo.

3) Me buying mushrooms and pumpkin flowers from the stand in the market. I always buy mushrooms, black fungus and pumpkin flowers from this woman.

4) The woman at the market weighing the black fungus. We use this in the Yangshuo style sweet and sour pork recipe!

Yangshuo: Chelsee's Pictures Part I

Leo and I copied some of Chelsee's pictures onto my computer yesterday before they left.

Here are a few - again, I'm not sure which order they will load in.

1) Chelsea and Richard toasting cashews at the cooking school.

2) Right after my bike broke. Richard is the one on the bicycle in the photo, and I am in front of him on the back of a motorbike, with my bicycle also on the motorbike. We are going through a big intersection which is the only traffic light in Yangshuo.

3) Kelly, Leo, Me and Richard at a chicken restaurant on the outskirts of town. They only make two dishes: chicken stir fry and chicken soup. We only had the stir fry, which is an entire chicken cut up and fried with a blend of spices and other ingredients (tasted ginseng, chinese dates, ginger, star anise, garlic). We had planned to get the soup too, but then Kelly suggested we go to a different restaurant for fish instead.

4) Kelly, David and Leo eating at the fish restaurant. Here we chose a live fish (carp) from the tank - then they wonked it on the head, sliced it up, fried it in pieces and served it in a big wok on a hotplate on the table. The fish was in a broth, along with lots of pickled vegetables, tofu balls, fresh tofu, green onions, tomato, and ginger....so it simmered a bit more on the table as we ate. The entire wok-ful of fish, plus unlimited rice, cost a total of 64 yuan, which is about 10 dollars. It was a ton of food for the 5 of us.

In a previous post I spelled Chelsee's name incorrectly. I can't fix it until I'm back in the US though....so Chelsee, I apologize!

Yangshuo: A Bad Day for Biking

After Pam left on Monday, I started using her bike to go around town - and yesterday, like usual, I took it to the market in the morning. Yesterday was a nice day finally, after about 4 days of rain. I did the shopping, sent the food back on a motorbike, then got some breakfast of noodle soup, then went to use the internet for a little bit before meeting up with the cooking school class. After going through the market with the cooking class again, I came back to where I parked the bike it was gone! (the back wheel was locked to the frame, but not to any solid object - but this is the same way Pam and I lock our bikes every day). I called Leo to come down and ask the people who were selling things nearby if they had seen anything, but everyone said they hadn't. I was pretty bummed out that the bike got stolen.

 

I got a ride back to the school in a van with the class - I participated yesterday so I could try out the duck dish which is the one dish I hadn't cooked yet. Then after class, I went over to the hostel nearby the school to rent a bike. I got a mountain bike, similar to the one I had during my first few days here. But when I headed into town later in the day, I noticed the back gears kept slipping - something seemed weird with the contraption that moves the chain between the gears.

 

I went to the market again with the afternoon class (I've now started leading tours of the market when there are big groups - this is a bit weird, because I feel like people who pay for a cooking class in China don't want an white American guy leading their tours of the market - but at the same time, going in a group of 8 is not as good as going in two groups of 4.....and I know what everything is at this point, so I think I do a pretty good job at explaining things and showing everyone around - plus my English is excellent :). But it's an interesting dilemma - back to the authenticity question here too: is it an authentic tour of the market if it's led by me?)

 

After the market, I hung out in town for a bit before meeting up w/ Richard and Chelsea, and American couple I met at the cooking school. Our plan was to bikeride back to Chaolong (where i live) to eat at the restaurant next to my house. The cook there is named Xiao Feng and she makes excellent homestyle food - when Pam and I ate there, we told her to just make whatever she wanted, and we did the same last night, with a special request for ma-po tofu (the best version I've ever had).

 

But anyway, on the way out of town, my chain was slipping down the gears again, and then I downshifted on the gearshift and suddently the whole gear changer on the back wheel flipped up and got caught in the wheel, causing the bike to suddently stop. It was very broken. Luckily I was right in town, and the guy who is one of my normal motortaxi drivers was right there......so Chelsea and Richard continued on their bikes, and meanwhile we tied my very broken bike onto the back of the motorbike, and I hopped on too, and I got a ride back to Chaolong.

 

Last night after dinner I rented yet another bike from the hostel, this time just a simple 1 gear bike - it's not very good, but it does the trick of getting to the market and back, so it will do. And hopefully no one will want to steal it!

 

Today it's raining again - but it looks like it *might* be clearing up. We'll see. More soon.

 

Yangshuo: One Week In

Here are a few more photos. I'm not sure which order they will load in.

Two pictures are of the Li River - both taken last week when I went on a bikeride to a village about 12 km away called Fu Li. There was a big market there the day we went - we had to take a ferry with the bikes to cross the river, so I took some shots of the scenery.

The other two pictures are at the cooking school - bowls of pork prepared for two different recipes: one involves chopped mint and another chopped spring onion. The other is a plate of veggies ready to be cooked, along w/ soy sauce, oil and water. In the background you can see the bike that I am using, parked next to two motorbikes owned by the women who work in the kitchen.

Yangshuo: BBQ in the Night Market

At night, the market becomes an eating area with several BBQ stands. I went last week with Kelly and Leo, and we ordered way too much stuff - they have a display and you choose what you want to BBQ - a lot of it is actually then deep fried first, then BBQd, so it's a bit greasy but some was pretty good. There was some fried pumpkin, and some good spicy chicken.

One picture here shows Kelly and Leo eating oysters, which were barbecued with lots of garlic in a tomatoey sauce. These were really good, and tasted almost like Italian food.

Another picture shows the display with various items - some more appealing than others.

The last picture is of me trying pig's penis. It didn't taste good at all - it actually just tasted like rubber. Kelly and Leo made me take this picture - they didn't eat any because they don't like it. We mostly got it for the novelty. I won't be having it again. In front of me though was a huge platter of BBQ fish - this was really good, the sauce was spicy and had cumin and lots of mint in it - this style is from the Southern part of Guanxi province, so there were definite Vietnamese influences here. Apparently there's another place in town that makes this type of BBQ fish even better, so I'll definitely try it at some point.

Yangshuo: Where I Live

Here are two pictures. One if of the house I am living in right now. The cooking school is in the front, then there's a courtyard, then the main part of the house which is in the picture.

The other picture is the swimming hole in the river which is close to the house. Sometimes there are rafts with Chinese tourists floating by, and they take pictures of me swimming - although I haven't been swimming for a few days since it's been raining.