Food in China

CET Intensive Chinese Language in Beijing program, Spring ’11

                             Spicy Tudousi

There’s a lot to eat in China, from street vendor snack food to huge family dinners with twelve entrees and not enough space in your stomach to accommodate so much as a third of it.

When I first got to China, I was a little paranoid about the things I put in my mouth. I, too, had heard the stories about how dangerous certain food could be in China, but once I had adapted somewhat to CET and Chinese culture, I found myself starting to experiment more and more. Not only have I not yet gotten food poisoning from anything I’ve eaten (or even la duzi, which travelers to China generally view as less of a threat than an inevitability), but I feel like my culinary experience in China has been one of the most valuable and interesting parts of my time here.

 

Of course, there are certain staples that I keep coming back to over and over. The jiaozi restaurant a few streets down, for example, as well as a small Sichuan restaurant in our neighborhood and the now-closed Mydo pie chain.

 

For the longest time, I lived off of jiaozi. Typically carrot-and-egg, sometimes fennel, sometimes black fungus. Always, of course, accompanied by suan la de tudousi, or spicy garlic potato strips. (I have yet to find these in any Chinese restaurant in America, no matter how authentic. I think this is one of the things I will miss most about China.)

If you don’t want to wait for a restaurant to fry or steam your dumplings, there are quicker options. For a long time, I was addicted to the pies at Mydo pie chain, which was conveniently located a few steps from CET’s front gate and offered flavors ranging from fennel and egg to spicy chicken. It’s closed down now, which was unbelievably tragic in my opinion, as I’d gotten accustomed to eating there twice a day at minimum, and was on first-name basis with the owners. I replaced it with another tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant next door. When I first got sick with appendicitis, one of my Chinese teachers had brought me soup from this restaurant and I’d loved it. Though they also offer a range of foods from cold tossed noodles to meat soups and beef-and-vegetable-filled buns, the bok choy and egg soup is still my favorite. Takeaway soup in China comes in a plastic bag, which is unnerving at first, but really is quite practical when you think about it. And yes, they provide a paper bowl as well.

 

With summer approaching, street food is becoming more and more popular, as well. You actually do have to be careful with this, and I recommend sticking to vendors that are affiliated with stationary storefronts, rather than carrying their products around on the back of a bicycle. Zongzi, or rice dumplings filled with meat or fruit, are becoming increasingly common, and chuanr (various meats or vegetables on a stick) are around no matter the season.