Huizhou: Some Spicy Hunan Cuisine

I actually didn't know I had food poisoning until right after breakfast, when whatever I ate came straight back out... both ends. It wasn't fun at all. During the a meeting, our colleagues decided to take us to this restaurant that's famous in Huizhou for authentic 湖南 Hunan cuisine, which was the worst thing for my stomach.

Now, Hunan cuisine is all about spicy food. Typically people think of Szechuan as the province with all the spicy food but Hunan cuisine can hold its own. They differ from one another in that Szechuan cuisine is more about a numbing spiciness, with the Szechuan peppercorn, while Hunan is all about the heat from dried chilies.

Prior to setting off, one of their guys went of and bought me 保濟丸 baojiwan, which is a Chinese herbal medicine that.. cures everything haha. It says it is for stomach aches, upset stomach, cramps, pains, cold, fever, chest pains etc etc. It listed at least 20 different things that it can be used for.

That one whole bottle... ONE SERVING. Smells exactly like Chinese medicine... but whatevers, at the time I have no Pepto, so no choice. The funny thing is... it actually worked! My stomach didn't hurt as much and I figured that this is a once in a lifetime chance to be eating some legit Hunan food, so as soon as I got to the restaurant, I went for it.

湘妃樓 Xiang Fei Lou

廣東省惠州市橫江三路

Heng Jiang 3rd Road

Huizhou City, Guangdong Province

Xiang Fei Lou. Really popular restaurant in Huizhou. Many people that travels to this city ome here as one of the main stops. Funny thing about this restaurant is that on the outside it says "Absolutely no Japanese will be served." I guess his family suffered greatly under Japanese oppression back in the days so the owner refuses to serve Japanese patrons.

They started off by giving us a few side dishes. Marinated soy bean. This was actually pretty damn spicy. Only ate 2 beans since I didn't want my stomach to go crazy already.

Seaweed. Yea. Spicy too.

Lotus root soup. I haven't had lotus root soup in awhile so this was really refreshing.

Stir-fry Beef Skin. YES, beef skin. It's actually the part of the meat that's just before the cow hide so it has this weird crunchy texture for some pieces while some was like jerky. Extremely spicy...

Eggplant. I hate eggplant so I only took a bite. Still can't stand it.

This was my favorite dish: sour cabbage glass noodle. They take sour cabbage, stir fry it with glass noodle and all sorts of aromatics like garlic and chili, then plated on top of a teppan plate.

Stir-fry chinese sausage. Very typical to order Chinese sausages for Hunan food.

Fried fish in spicy sauce. Yea sorry for the horrible name but I don't know what kind of fish it is. I just know that it was specially imported from Hunan cause it's only eaten there or something. Has a real fishy taste so it's a freshwater fish, but the spicy sauce totally drowns it. Would be super good with rice.

Ended the meal on something sweet, 紅豆餡餅 red bean crepe. At the restaurant they actually called it Indian nan. Semi-sweet red bean filling in between the crispy sheets of "crepe."

I was actually really surprised I went through the entire meal with me being food poisoned and all, but I did pay for it after a few hours. Of course I didn't eat much but I was glad I got to try it out.

Huizhou: Food Poisoned at Also-Milo...

I'm usually pretty proud of my stomach. Most of the time... I can eat through most things and still come out fine while friends and/or colleagues get crazy stomach pains or food poisoning. Street food doesn't scare me and I love raw food (except oysters... that I still need to learn to like), so the chances of me getting sick is even higher, but I've always somehow been okay. Unfortunately, little did I know I would get food poisoned so bad that I could barely eat for 3-4 days at a restaurant called Milo Coffee in 惠州 Huizhou.

Huizhou is another city I visit quite frequently for work. It's one of the biggest city in Guangdong province and many considers Huizhou to be a tier 1 city in China. Of course, being a big modernized city doesn't mean its standards are up to par, so you still need to be careful with where you eat. We decided, for dinner, at a HK-style cafe in Huizhou, figuring that it would be pretty clean and that the food should be somewhat more familar. WRONG.

米夢咖啡 Milo Coffee

广东省惠州市江北碧水湾金碧苑

Jiang Bei Bi Shui Wan, Jin Pi Yuan

Huizhou City, Guangdong Provice, China

www.alsomilo.com

Milo-Coffee is actually a big chain of cafe in China, serving both Chinese and Western food.

Sample of the menu.

Meal started off with Chinese chicken soup, which was actually really good since I haven't had Chinese chicken soup in a long time.

For Chinese chicken soup, there's always plenty of interesting ingredients that make up the distinctive flavor of the soup.

I decided to go with a chicken steak combo, which is something all cafes serve. Comes with a sunny-side-up egg, bokchoy, and rice. Thinking it would be pretty safe, I took this picture and just ate without worry. However...

It wasn't until I got home and edited this picture I realized that the CHICKEN was the cause of my food poisoning episode. It's still PINK in the middle!! Damn. For the rest of the trip after this meal, I was so certain the egg had salmonella or something since it was still runny. It never occurred to me that it was the chicken that got me sick. The chicken rested on a piping hot teppan plate and it had this charred flavor to it so I didn't even think twice when I was eating it. It also didn't help that it was semi dark at the restaurant so I couldn't really tell that it was still pinkish in the middle -___-

This black pepper sauce that it came with certainly helped disguised the undercooked chicken :[

The funny thing was that my co-worker said "Ordering stews and braised items are the safest way to go in China since you know for sure that it is cooked for a loooong time." So he ordered a Taiwanese braised beef set, and I scoffed at him, saying, "Why would anybody order Taiwanese food in China??"

Sigh.

I should've recorded my own reaction when I was editing my pictures and found out that it was actually the chicken steak that owned me. It was joy, sadness, and anger all at once. Happy that I finally figured out what cause my sickness, sad that I was betrayed by my beloved chicken steak, and angry at the stupid restaurant and at myself for not being more careful.

I'm still gonna eat everything... just... I'll be more careful next time around, especially with chicken :P

Zhuhai: Authentic Northern Chinese Cuisine

Generally when I'm in China, I don't take much pictures of where I go to eat since I can't really take pictures during business lunches/dinners and I don't really want to venture out by myself, unless it is Beijing, Shenzheng, or Shanghai, ie big cities. However, when I was in Zhuhai, one of my conversation with one of their sales got to cameras, I started to show him what I took during this trip to the Far East, and during lunch, he even encouraged me to take pictures, which I gladly did! Of course it was still a little odd for me to do that so for each of the below I just took a picture as fast as I could.

In 珠海 Zhuhai, there's a restaurant called 天香園 Tian Xiang Yuan, which is an extremely popular restaurant focusing on Northeast Chinese Cuisine (東北菜) and it is AWESOME. I've actually had it once before when I went to China for training and posted a few pics on Facebook awhile back but this time I actually got the chance to take some good pictures rather than secretly taking it. For Northeast cuisine, many dishes are sweet and there is a bigger focus on 主食 staple foods, such as bread, bing, buns, or rice.

天香園 Tian Xiang Yuan

中国廣東省, 珠海市, 寿丰路

Zhuhai City, Shou Feng Road

Guangdong Province, China

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So where's 珠海 Zhuhai? It is essentially right across from Hong Kong, with the South China Sea in between. Generally, people will take ferries that takes only about an hour to get to Zhuhai. If by road, it'll take more than 3-4 hours since you must head towards Shengzheng from HK, head north then southwest until you get to Zhuhai.

Wet napkins showing the logo and name of the place, 天香園 Tian Xiang Yuan. I don't really know the names of the following dishes so I'll just translate and describe it to the best of my abilities :P

大豆腐 Soy sauce tofu. This is one of my favorite dishes at this restaurant. Huge piece of homemade firm tofu, drizzled with a soy sauce dressing mixed with aromatics. It's really simple but just flavored so well.

From the texture, you can see it is firm tofu.

酸白菜 cabbage in vinegar dressing. This dish may look spicy as hell, but it's really not. The chilies are mostly for show. A little different from the Szechuan version of cabbage, it's a lot lighter and much more refreshing. I love the minced garlic in there.

燒全魚 Brasied whole fish. I really don't know what kind of fish it is, but it is tender, juicy, and fresh. When you drizzle that sauce over it... heavenly.

乾排骨 Pork ribs. It is quickly fried so that it has a crispy "dry" outside. Generous spice rub all over with cumin dominating most of your palate. Good dish to share.

乾炒大腸 Wok-fried big intestine. I heart intestine so I was really excited for this dish. Again, the chilies are mostly for colors. Wok-fried essentially means it is stir-fried over really REALLY big flames with little oil which results in food that's not overly greasy or oily. I love the texture of the intestine, being crunchy on the outside.

炒什錦菇 Stir fry mushrooms. Lots of different mushrooms in this great sauce. I don't know what it is, but it's good, trust. The fried shallots completes this dish.

甜玉米 Boiled Sweet Maize. Boiled, then lightly salted to enhance the natural sweetness. This corn is similar to the Indian maize Korean markets often sell. It has a really chewy, almost sticky kernel and when I was a kid I called these mochi corn haha.

Of course, Northeast cuisine is also known for dumplings and buns, and they certainly did this 韭菜盒子 chive calzone justice.

鍋巴肉 Refried sweet pork. First it is stir-fried, then they batter it and fried once again. Awesome crunch from the batter and chewy texture from the pork. The sweet & sour sauce is as legit as you can get. None of that pink... orange sauce... BS like Panda Express!

This is the most amazing thing, at least, for me, at Tian Xiang Yuan: 炸紅豆蛋白球 fried eggwhite mochi with red bean. Ok, yes, I know it's a weird name but I don't really know what to call it! It's pretty much a mochi made with egg whites, fried, then filled with semi-sweet red bean. The thing that makes it so good is the texture on the outside. Since it is mixed with egg white, it has a really soft, chewy, and airy texture. It's not as sticky as your typical mochi but it provides me of a bite.

Sorta like a sesame ball from dim sum, but.... BETTER!

To be honest, I'm really grateful to them for waiting while I take the shots of the dishes served at this meal since I could only take pictures of half eaten food last time. It really is one of the best Chinese food I've had anywhere, and it's when I visit places like this and eat great food that I am reminded that there is still a lot for me to see and taste concerning my own heritage.

Far East Trip

I will be back in a week or so since I'm heading off on a trip to Taipei, HK, and southern parts of China. Finally got a nice point & shoot camera for this trip so hopefully no more iPhone pics, even though... iPhone 4's quality is surprisingly nice.

Definitely will be looking for some new and interesting things... or just the same old classics haha. Beef noodle soup time!!!

Xi'An - 回教街 [Islamic Street] Part 2

So a group of us went back to the Isalmic street the 2nd night...

And... I saw these lamb hooves just sitting there, so I decided I had to have it.

A close up of the lamb hoof. I don't know what it was called, but it's cooked and then marinated in this spicy sour sauce. Soooo tender.

Skewers galore hahaha.

The crowded street.

More lamb skewers, but these were the best lamb skewers I ate while I was in China. They add the usual spices but they also added some other sort of chili to it. Couldn't figure it out but it was daaamn good.

豬肉韭黃餡餅 (Pork and chive "pancake"). Ground pork with chives in a flour "pancake." Hella MSG. Made my tongue numb for like... 5 minutes, which was pretty scary cause you need A LOT of MSG to do that haha. They were made by these... 13-14 year olds. Tsk, child labor. The funny thing, I don't think they were Muslim... cause Muslims don't eat pork right? :P

Felix's 韭菜餡餅 (chives "pancake"). Similar to mine, except it has no pork.

Street perfomances!

芝麻柿子餅 (Sesame persimmon "donut"). It's dough flavored with persimmon, then fried. Again, I got the sesame filling, but there's also lots of different fillings available too.

I lost a few of my other pictures :[ But yea, the Islamic street is seriously a place you must go if you're ever in Xi'An. I don't think I've even tried half of what the vendors offered. Delicious food + huge selection + cheap prices = a happy duke.

Shanghai: Week 4 - Misc

So here's a few misc. things that I had during the 4th week... and yea we eat a lot of McDees in Shanghai haha.

Yay for apple pies! But wait... it's actually a Pineapple Pie. To be honest, the pineapple pie tastes actually kinda weird since the filling is really sweet, almost more like a pineapple marmalade. Unique to China though!

Afterwards, had myself a Taro Pie, which was really REALLY good. It just tastes like... taro haha! For some reason, the crust of both the pineapple and the taro pie were crunchier than the apple pie in the US. Taiwan's apple pie is the same as well.

This is a bento set from the train ride we took from Shanghai to Xi'An. Pretty balanced meal I'd have to say haha. Too bad it was a bit salty and I'm sure they added hella MSG to it.

This is our good old friend... 白酒, a kind of Chinese alcohol. It tastes horrific, almost as if you're drinking gasoline, but hey it get's you drunk REALLY fast haha. Yup, drank a bit on the train.

We actually saw this in Xi'An, and yup, it's the center of a sunflower... and you buy it for the... sunflower seeds! This is one of the coolest thing I've seen since I've never imagined I would eat sunflower seeds straight from a sunflower haha. The only thing is that it isn't roasted and who knows what dirty things are stuck in between... oh well haha.