Asia's ten greatest street food cities

So here's what I spent most of November and December working on. 9,000 words about 100 street foods in Penang, Taipei, Bangkok, Fukuoka, Hanoi, Singapore, Seoul, Xi'an, Manila and Phnom Penh.
Read more: Asia's 10 greatest street food cities | CNNGo.com

Chinese menu translations

And so I bid farewell to China. We've had some good times together, me and China. We've also had some meals together. We've had our difficulties, too. Communication ones, mainly.

Below are some menus and signs seen during my travels in China:


Clear cooks the bull penis, Pingyao


Red-faced ambiguous, Pingyao


France bread, Dali


Dry speeding potato wire, Lijiang


The elements fries the cat ear, Pingyao boils the lump, Pingyao


Pingyao smokes the egg, Cold food in sauce bull's penis, Pingyao


Moon Restaurant Drunk, Lijiang


The Fat Sister's Yak Meat, Lijiang


Octopus Pill, Lijiang

Inside a Chinese kitchen

Not too long ago I was staying at a guest house in Yunnan Province. When the owner disappeared into the kitchen to first make her dinner and then ours, I trailed in after her and asked if I could watch. I learned an awful lot about Chinese cooking that day, more than I wanted to know, in fact.

During my travels in China I have been consistently worried that what I am eating isn't very healthy--every dish is usually dripping in oil and the meat is usually more fat than flesh. So I've made a real effort to try and have as many vegetables as possible at every meal. My favorite is a dish called "fish-flavored eggplant."  It took me more than a month in China to find out that the eggplant is deep-fried before it is stir-fried, thus negating any possible health benefits one might get from eating vegetables.

What surprised me most was seeing this woman cook her own dinner. I had assumed that the excess oil was a restaurant cooking style, and that normal people don't really eat like that on a daily basis. But when she made her own dinner--fried rice--I was slightly horrified to see her add approximately 2 cups of oil to the rice. 2 cups of oil that was absorbed into the rice, of course, and was eaten as part of a single meal.

I think in my heart I had always known that this is how fried rice is cooked, but I hadn't ever allowed myself to acknowledge it before. And I know that I had read an article on Serious Eats about Chinese restaurants using a shallow form of deep-frying on nearly every food they make, but I also managed to ostrich that right out of my psyche. That's what makes it taste so good, unfortunately.

Luckily this kitchen visit came near the end of China adventure. I'm not particularly concerned with food hygiene and come from a family that believes that the rotten bits can just be cut off and the rest is still good. But what I have seen of Chinese restaurant kitchens in China has been eye-opening to say the least. In a word, they were filthy. One Westerner I talked to who was running a pub and restaurant in Yunnan mentioned that he would never open one in his home country because he didn't want to deal with all of the food safety and hygiene regulations. "They don't care about that stuff here," he said.

In my guest house's dimly-lit kitchen, a number of sickly looking kittens were slinking around cutting boards and unlabeled packets of powder and sauces were sitting around, open, with a thick layer of debris on them. The dishes were made, in large part, from food that was sitting unlabeled and uncovered in the fridge and freezer. The whole thing brought back fond memories of dinner at my grandparents' place.

But somehow it's different when the cook isn't related to you. Perhaps it is just my Western bias to think that a woman who has just had her finger lodged in her nose up to the first knuckle before making your dinner is sort of gross. These are the sort of things that one must become accustomed to when dining outside of the major metropolitan areas of China. But in all honestly, ultimately it made no difference. I ate my dinners. I didn't get sick. And although I do wish that the food had been less oily, much of it was truly delicious. So there you have it. Pick on, brothers and sisters, it doesn't really affect dinner all that much.

...and corn candy

I'm not one of those people that has high standards when it comes to sweets. I'll neck a Hershey bar like it ain't no thang. I'm not the sort that demands any sort of exacting quality in the sweets department. But as I mentioned before the candy in China doesn't do much for me. I'm a big fan of corn in real life, but not so sure about it in my alternate reality, China. First, there was the corn ice cream. Now there's the rubbery gummy candy, texturized to look like an ear of corn. I sent some to my mother, a woman of decidedly questionable taste, and she said it was "weirdly appealing."

That's not a bad way to describe it, though. It's so disgusting that it is almost good, like those really sour candies or stinky cheese. I felt like it was teetering on the line for me, and if I were in a more tolerant state of mind I'd be showing off about my new favorite food, corn candy. But then I ran into a bowl of these in the Air China lounge in Chengdu and a moment after depositing one into my big fat face I ended up spitting it out into my big fat hand. Mission aborted.



I emailed my mother for her final word on this candy and she wrote back: "I'd have to eat another one and I can't face it so early."

Corn ice cream

When I was in the 4th grade "Gifted and Talented" program (seriously) we had an assignment to come up with an invention. My invention was vegetable ice cream to help encourage kids to get their 5 a day. Obviously China ganked the idea from me because they have green pea, red bean and corn ice cream in their freezer cases. Despite having my million dollar idea stolen, it's slightly gratifying to realize that my invention was as brilliant as I had believed twenty years ago, it just needed to be executed in China rather than the Napa Valley.



The nice thing about this ice cream is that it is seriously corny. There's happy corn on the front, it's shaped like a corn cob and when you open the package you get a serious bang of canned corn off the whole thing. The smell was enough to inspire a small, ladylike gag.



What I assume must represent the husk is something that is similar to a very thin layer of regular (as opposed to sugar) ice cream cone or possibly styrofoam. Once you get through this, the payoff is pretty intense. The corn smell which just a moment earlier was enticing me to vomit in my mouth was now calling my name and filling my mouth with sweet, creamy goodness.

Much like my ice cream invention, the ratio of vegetable to sugar and fat was low, thus making it a truly enjoyable and completely non-nutritious treat. The corn flavor isn't overpowering; it's much more ice cream than it is a can of creamed corn. It was actually pretty good--if it hadn't had that weird corn husk coating and the rancid smell, I would actually eat it again. If anyone has any idea how I can get my royalty check for this idea, I'm all ears.

Counterfeit Oreos

Ords. I very nearly purchased them thinking they were the real thing.

**Travel Tip** China survival mechanism: eat (real) Oreos often.

Dali Wind: beer for girls

At After Midnight in Dali, the adorable bartender suggested that I might like a Dali Wind, because it is made specially for women. When I wanted to take a picture, she helped by adding flowers. The beer was only slightly sweet, not sickeningly sweet. That must be the "Advanced Technology" they mention on the label.

Interestingly, I can't find any mention of this beer anywhere. It's not the same as the Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon also made by Dali. (I can attest that that once is also pretty decent, but not as feminine.) So there you have it. Beer for girls.

Duck blood tofu

Yes, I ate it. I'm not a big fan of blood products, and when confronted with a full English breakfast I'll chuck the blood pudding. Duck blood tofu, on the other hand, is something that I'll put in my mouth. It was mild--I wouldn't have known to be grossed out if my friend Kate hadn't gagged while I ate it.



This is just a piece of beef, but doesn't it look tasty? This was an expensive, high-quality hotpot place in Beijing near Zhichunlu.

Sichuan hotpot

I like it hot. But the residents of the Sichuan province in China like it really hot. Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan and is known for its fiery hotpots. There's also a belief that the temperament of the people that hail from the different provinces correlate to their food styles. The Cantonese are more subtle and delicate, Beijing-ers are blunt and the Sichuanese are said to have flaring tempers to match their spicy meals.



The other bowl is filled with boiling oiling and chilis, as well as various medicinal herbs. The inner pot has a mild soup, this one is seafood based, the one at the bottom is mushroom based. In the first picture all of the tiny black dots you see in the mild bowl are the little eyes of salted shrimp.



The dipping sauce is a combination of sesame oil, vinegar, oyster sauce, salt, MSG, sugar, garlic and coriander. She was horrified when I asked her to leave out the MSG. And then later I was horrified when I realized at the end of the meal that my bowl was empty and I had just consumed close to a full cup of sesame oil. But sesame oil is so good.



The way hotpot works is you order loads of food and then cook it in the hotpot and eat it piece by piece. This is a process that can take a very long time depending on your pace. Usually there are a lot of vegetables, a lot of meat and then random stuff like tofu, duck blood, dumplings, noodles and other random odds and ends.

Dipping things in the outer bowl of hot oil is dangerous--it's spicy enough that it had me coughing and in tears. My technique was to cook it in the mild bowl and then dunk an edge in the oil before eating it. Just enough for a little kick.

These pics were taken at ChongQing QinMa Hotpot (重庆亲妈伙埚) in Chengdu.

Chinese breakfast

This may come as a surprise, but in China the most popular thing to have for breakfast is Chinese food. Many roundeyes can stomach eating Chinese food for two meals a day, but when it comes to breakfast, they draw the line. And really, can you blame them?

(Obviously, I don't feel this way myself. I've always disliked breakfast and most of the foods associated with it, especially cold cereal. Blech.)

But there are a few Chinese foods that even the Westerners can get down with for breakfast. I was lucky enough to be served both of them at the Naxi family guesthouse in Tiger Leaping Gorge.



These are two of my favorite dishes in China, and are perfect for breakfast: egg and tomato stir fry and congee. The egg and tomato dish is so simple and truly delicious. Fry some tomatoes, fry some eggs, add salt, stir them together and add scallions if you wish. Can be served with rice or noodles, but you can skip that if you're looking for more of a breakfast buzz. This is one of the meals that I will definitely be making once I get home.

Congee (more on that in a few days) is a porridge that is usually made from rice, but the one above was made from maize. This one reminded me of a thinner version of one of my favorite childhood breakfasts, cream of wheat.

So rejoice, white people! You can stop ordering those overpriced and underwhelming English breakfasts at your hotel--hit the streets and get some egg and tomato and congee already.

Chengdu dumplings

I don't remember the exact price of these dumplings, but it was pretty close to free.



I took a dumpling making class in Xi'an and although mine were obviously superior to everyone else there, they definitely did not look like these bad boys. Sigh.

Yunnan bridge noodles

Lijiang's old town is adorable--canals run along the side of tiny alleys, red lanterns hang from all of the ancient buildings and Naxi women chill out in the town square. The adorableness is not lost on the Chinese; Lijiang is a major China tourist attraction. After my disheartening foodie experience (cheap ingredients, high prices) in Pingyao, another town popular with Chinese tourists, I was apprehensive about my first meal in Lijiang.



To be fair, though, I'm apprehensive about most meals in China these days, as I've found that not reading or speaking Chinese can be a major roadblock to getting what I want and at a fair price. Find someone who doesn't know the rules to charades and try acting out the word "broccoli" to get a sense of what I'm talking about.



I was delighted when we wandered into a row of restaurants on the outskirts of the old town that were filled with teenage girls milling about in their blue and white or red and blue tracksuit school uniforms. (They had mostly disappeared by the time I took the picture above.) It was far enough outside of the main town that the tourists were gone, a girl was washing her hair with a coffee cup over the canal, and overall, the scene seemed promising for lunch.



Of course there was no English menu, so we went inside and just pointed at random ingredients that we liked. I have found out the hard way that if you point at a piece of beef you will end up with a plate of beef and nothing else, sometimes even no seasoning. Even worse, sometimes if you point at five ingredients they will think you want five dishes, each one made from just one of the ingredients. So I pointed at the pork and then waved my arms frantically over the entire vegetable section in a way that I hoped conveyed that I wanted a delicious assortment of veggies.



The Yunnan province, of which Lijiang is a part of, is known for a noodle dish (过桥米线) sometimes called across-the-bridge, crossing-the-bridge, cross-bridge or over-the-bridge noodles. You get the idea, it's about getting from one side of a bridge to the other. The story behind it is that a man would go somewhere far from home to study for his exams. Every day his wife would cross a bridge to bring him rice for lunch and every day it would get cold before she got there.



The ingenious woman decided to start bringing a bowl of hot soup with a layer of fat on top of it instead. Once she arrived, she would add fresh ingredients like vegetables and rice noodles to the soup, which was still hot due to the layer of fat on top. The vegetables and noodles would cook in the soup and the scholar would never have to settle for a lukewarm lunch again. Of course he passed his exams and became a rich man, and commemorated his wife's exertions by naming the dish she made after the journey she made over the bridge to deliver them to him every day. She was probably livid that he named them after the bridge and not her--at least I would be.



I had no idea that this meal was a specialty of the region, or even that we had wandered into a place that served it. I just pointed at a few ingredients and hoped for the best. Because of the touristy nature of Lijiang I had expected to get an overpriced, underwhelming meal. So imagine my delighted surprise when we were served two giant bowls of bridge noodles, brimming with fresh vegetables, a plate of ham and green onions and a giant bottle of Dali beer (they didn't have water, so what can you do?) for ¥37, about $5.40. And in keeping with Lijiang's reputation of perpetual springtime and nice weather, the sun was shining and I even managed to get a bit of color over lunch.

Chinese potato chips

I know that I have already covered the Lay's Natural & Cool and Natural & Warm line of potato chips in exhausting detail, but while researching the subject I found a few more flavors that I wanted to share. Long story short, Chinese people like different flavors than Westerners. Some flavor examples on sale in Chengdu the other day are below. They include: Italian Red Meat Flavor, American Classic, Seaweed, BBQ Steak, Prawn, Hot & Spicy and Crab. Obviously this is in addition to the aforementioned kiwi, blueberry, mango, lychee, cucumber, cherry tomato and lime-flavored potato chips.



 



I can't lie, it's all very intriguing. I have a pack of the BBQ Steak ones in my bag to be opened in case of emergencies (and by emergencies I mean 14 hour train rides).

Great wall food

Not much to say, I just liked these pictures. They were taken at a little restaurant near the Great Wall at Mutianyu. Despite being so close to a major tourist attraction the food was delicious.

More yin yang potato chips

A few weeks ago I tried to help inform you, my Western audience, of the particulars regarding the yin and yang of potato chips. Since there was such an outpouring of interest (ha), I decided to venture forth to the supermarket to gather more evidence.


Refreshing Lime flavor, both natural and cool!


Green Cucumber flavor. Again natural, cool and totally yin.


 Another yin flavor from the Natural & Cool line: Revitalizing Kiwi



And the final proof--Lay's isn't only making yin potato chips, there's an Natural & Warm line as well that contains yang flavors like mango and lychee! So, get started on your Chinese food therapy with a big bag of artificially flavored crisps. You can thank me later.