Almost all the dishes we ate in China were from Yangshuo, which we realize represents only a small portion of China’s cuisine. We cooked at home more frequently since we couldn’t eat out for $7 as in Thailand. Ethan cooked dumplings that we bought from the grocery store daily. There was one employee at the pre-cooked section that liked to give me new things to try. I would point to something and hold up a number of fingers (not having perfected my Chinese numbers). He would give us the 10 dumplings requested, but then suggest some other thing beside it. It didn’t really matter if I said yes or no because he would always pile in a few extra items for us to try at home. Not sure why, but it made him smile a lot.
And one day I got to play the children’s game hot / cold in the grocery. After not finding tofu on multiple occasions, I held out my phone with the word “tofu” translated into Chinese to an employee, who pointed me toward the back of the store. The store was large, so I went through at least five employees (getting closer and further) until I finally found the tofu, which was unexpectedly piled in between lots of meat.
Here are a few pictures we remembered to take before gobbling down our food.
Matthew and Ethan’s favorite dish in Yangshuo.
Above is chicken that cooked inside the bamboo (Longji rice terraces). It seemed like a chicken chopped up into two-inch squares pieces with no thought of dissection. Ethan has learned to eat more of the meat than the nicely cleaned chicken breast he had in the States, however, some of these pieces were more than he was willing to try. Our guide was thrilled when we offered him some, and he happily took the foot / claw (?) that no one wanted (bottom left). He proceeded to eat it, popping the ‘foot’ part in while the ‘toes?’ sprouted out his mouth. As he chewed, which took longer than you might think, the toes twisted and turned outside his mouth. It was, well, a site that we will not forget (although I really wish I could).
Logan ate a lot of fried rice in China, although I am happy to say that she tried more foods this year than in the previous decade.
Beer fish is a specialty in Yangshuo (above).
On the Li River cruise, Matthew tried snail that the women in our seat offered to share. Despite his facial expression, he said it was really good. And now he talks about it every time we see snails, some of which are exceptionally meaty here in Romania.
A salad Natalie loved!
Meat on the street at Ping’an rice terraces.
Another Natalie favorite! And I have to thank Hongying again here for texting me the translations of my vegetarian requirements to show waiters. I used the text many times, and it worked much better than the basic google translate for the word vegetarian. THANKS!
Another beer fish.
Ethan got the wrap above in Beijing. I think it might be a Jianbing. Whatever it was, he LOVED it.
The kids loved the chicken above, and I enjoyed the cabbage. Really, I did. I love cabbage from all countries (photos from Romania to come). Unfortunately, my family does not share my love. A few years I got a craving for cabbage and tried to perfect cabbage dishes from around the world. We had a lot of leftovers.
