To China... and Beyond!

Explore China Without Leaving Beijing

Jessica Marsden — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 09:29:05 +0000

Afraid you’ll miss out on sampling China’s regional specialties because you only have time to visit Beijing? Worry no more.

Each of the provinces and many of China’s larger cities have offices in Beijing, complete with restaurants to cater to homesick officials. Tucked in nondescript hotels all around Beijing, these government-run restaurants offer reasonably-priced tastes of regional specialties that you would otherwise have to travel hundreds of miles for. Although the decor and service is typically lackluster (Inner Mongolian yurts aside), the restaurants are a great way to get out of the kungpao-chicken-and-dumplings rut. As always in China, you’ll have the best experience if you bring a big group along for the ride, so that you can sample as many dishes as possible.

Thanks to a friend who is on a quest to visit all of Beijing’s government restaurants, I’ve been to quite a few over the course of the past year. Quality and location-convenience varies, but all are worth exploring.

You know you're at a Sichuan restaurant when... there's a giant bowl of chilis on the table.

Chengdu: Less famous than the Sichuan provincial restaurant, the Chengdu restaurant inside the Shudu Hotel does excellent renditions of Sichuanese classics, from 水煮鱼 (fish cooked in spicy broth) to scrambled eggs with chilies. Compared to the other government restaurants, the atmosphere is practically intimate. It’s probably my favorite of all the government restaurants I’ve tried. Address: 蜀都宾馆, 成都市人民政府驻京办, 东城区沙滩后街30号

Chongqing: Chongqing is most famous for its hot pot, whose fiery red broth will leave your mouth numb. We ordered the 鸳鸯 (yuanyang) version, in which the pot is divided into two, with one half filled with a mild, non-spicy broth for when you can’t handle any more spice. Then you can fill the pot with your choice of meats, vegetables and many variations on tofu. Address: 重庆市人民政府驻京办, 重庆驻京办事处火锅厅, 朝阳区西坝河光熙门北里15号

Guangdong: Mediocre dim sum abounds in Beijing, so we were pleasantly surprised by this posh outpost of the Guangdong government. When we visited, the main restaurant was closed for a private event, so we didn’t get the traditional dim sum cart experience. It was also a little pricier than your average Beijing restaurant. Address: 广东省驻京办, 西城区西单横二条甲3号广州大厦5层

Guiyang: I was a bigger fan of this restaurant, representing the capital city of Guizhou Province, than my dining companions were. What can I say, all it took was the sticky rice cakes fried with strips of lean smoked ham (腊肉酸菜饵块粑) and I was a goner. The spicy-sour flavor that I think of as the signature of Guizhou cuisine was there in abundance. Address: 甲秀楼缘, 西城区西直门南小街国英园5号楼

Kitschy dinner yurts are a major draw at the Ordos restaurant.

Ordos, Inner Mongolia: I’m a little ashamed to admit that I had never heard of the city of Ordos until I visited their municipal office here in Beijing. I wasn’t even that excited to visit, since the food I ate in Mongolia proper was not all that inspiring. While I will never cultivate a taste for yak-butter tea, the municipal restaurant’s offerings were more delicious than I expected, particularly the grilled lamb ribs — yum! The Beijinger blog lists more recommended dishes. Address: 乳香飘飘, 东城区安定门外大街上龙北巷3号 (青年湖公园东门)

Western Hunan: Since I lived in Hunan for two years, I was extremely excited to check out the restaurant belonging to the Western Hunan regional office. The dry-pot bullfrog (干锅牛蛙) did not disappoint, but some of the simpler vegetable dishes that I ate on a near-daily basis in Hunan didn’t live up to my hopes. Address: 湘西土家族自治区驻京办, 西城区太平桥大街111号, 10th floor

Sichuan: The Sichuan provincial government restaurant, otherwise known as Chuan Ban, is perhaps the most well-known of the government restaurants, but I was mildly disappointed by the meal we had there last spring. We didn’t hit the long lines we had heard about, but we also didn’t get the amazing food we were promised. But maybe we were there on an off day — Beijing has too many good restaurants to return to a downer. Address: 四川省人民政府驻北京办事处,东城区建国门内贡院头条5号

Xinjiang: We frequented this restaurant during 2008, when I was studying Mandarin nearby, and I’ve been back a few times since. It’s often crowded and a little inconsistent, but I will always have a soft spot for the place where I was first introduced to the warm cumin-and-spice flavors

of Xinjiang food. Special shout out for the lamb fried with hunks of bread! Address: 新疆饭庄乌鲁木齐驻京办事处, 西城区车工庄大街北里1号

Yunnan: Like Chuan Ban, Yunteng Shifu is on the map for Beijing’s expat foodies. Aside from purple pineapple rice, I have trouble getting excited about Yunnanese food, perhaps because mushrooms, a local specialty, leave me cold. But who can say no to fried cheese? Address: 云腾食府, 云南省驻京办, 崇文区花市北里东区7号楼

For a more comprehensive list, check out the list of provincial restaurants over at Eileen Eats.

Weekend Escape to Pingyao

Jessica Marsden — Tue, 31 May 2011 04:16:55 +0000

Following up on the success of last semester’s trip to Chengde, this month my language program whisked us off to Pingyao for a quick early-summer cultural excursion. Pingyao is perhaps the most famous of China’s “ancient cities,” and it is known in particular for having a remarkably well-preserved set of city walls.

The view from Pingyao's city walls.

Unfortunately, we discovered that the charms of a Chinese old town are not necessarily well-suited to exploration by tour group. Instead of alternating our rambles with beers from one of Pingyao’s many backpacker cafes, we were shepherded posthaste from the city walls to “China’s original bank,” and from there to an ancient government office, preserved through the Cultural Revolution because it was still in use as the center of government. It’s hard to appreciate the ancient architecture when you’re struggling to stay in earshot of your guide and to resist being swept along with another group of tourists in matching hats.

But we did have plenty of opportunities to sample Shanxi’s traditionally noodle-heavy cuisine, as the province belongs to China’s wheat-eating north. We nibbled noodles in every shape and size, from long ribbons to “cat’s ears” to tubular buckwheat noodles were initially mistaken for offal. By the end of the weekend even this noodle-lover proclaimed herself done with them forever, a resolution that barely lasted two days.

The Wang Family Compound, ancient China's answer to Hyannis Port.

The undisputed highlight of our weekend was a bus trip out to the Wang Family Compound, a miraculously well-preserved Qing-era residential complex that once belonged to a family of Shanxi merchants. Wooden and stone carvings abound in the vast compound, which boasts more than 1000 rooms and 54 courtyards. Best of all, many of the rooms are furnished, so you can actually imagine what it might have been like to live there. This was also where being on a group tour showed its benefits — as the complex lies about an hour’s drive away from Pingyao with no convenient public transportation, I imagine that many independent travelers don’t take the trouble to make it out there. But if you’re in Pingyao, it is absolutely worth the trip, even if you have to hook up with a hostel-organized tour to make it!

Delicate carvings adorn doorways and windows in the Wang Family Compound.

Let the Spring Migration Commence

Jessica Marsden — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 04:57:46 +0000

Will the sights of southern India live up to the north? I'll soon find out.

China’s annual Spring Migration, when millions of workers head back to their hometowns for the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), has been in full force for about a week now. While we have continued to go to school, Tsinghua’s campus has been emptying out of students, teachers and cafeteria workers. The loss of the hustle and bustle has been a bit of a refreshing change, but I’ll be glad when all of the cafeterias reopen in two weeks!

This blogger is headed out, too — I’m using our two-week vacation to make a valiant return to India! This time, I’ll be exploring the very south of the country, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. (Check out stories from my previous trip to Varanasi, Delhi, Agra, Jaipur and Mumbai here.) I hope the trip will reenergize me for my final semester in China (!) and give me plenty of stories and photos with which to revitalize this blog.

See you after Valentine’s Day!

In Search of African Guangzhou

Jessica Marsden — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 01:33:14 +0000

An unexpected sighting on the streets of Guangzhou.

Guangzhou’s “Little Africa” — a stretch of trading markets near the Xiaobei (小北) metro stop — first came to my attention last year via an article in the New Yorker (subscribers only). I was intrigued by the notion of a different expat community from Beijing’s Sanlitun playground for the young-and-overpaid. So when Christmas weekend found me in Guangzhou, I was excited to head over to Xiaobei and see what I could find of the community that Osnos descibed.

As we emerged from the subway, the streetscape did not appear much different from other areas in Guangzhou. Which is to say, nondescript but giant buildings towered over pedestrians hurrying to and from. But subtle differences gradually began to emerge. Many of the giant buildings were labeled as “foreign trade markets.” There were more African faces in the crowds, and a few restaurant facades sported Arabic names. At least one shop specialized in the cheap, generic nylon duffels that I imagine are a key part of a trader’s equipment.

After wandering around for nearly an hour, we settled in for lunch at a cafe on the first floor of one of the markets. Only the waitstaff were Chinese, while all of the other patrons were African or Middle Eastern, and the menu was a mix of fufu and falafel. Our chicken shwarma wraps brought me — oddly — right back to Brussels, where a vibrant African immigrant community had also made a stamp on the local cuisine. A huge slice of rich, moist coconut cake might have been the best non-homemade baked good I’ve ever had in China.

All told, it was a worthy expedition into a different side of the third-largest city in China. If you find yourself in Guangzhou with an hour to spare — or a hunger for hummus — head to Xiaobei to check it out for yourself.

Learning What the Future Holds

Jessica Marsden — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 03:39:01 +0000

In the spirit of bringing the travel spirit home, a couple of weeks ago my friend Jane and I headed over to the Lama Temple neighborhood in search of 算命. Literally “counting a life,” this is the Chinese term for fortune-telling. My friend is about to leave China, and getting her fortune told was one of the last things left on her Beijing to-do list.

Our fortune-teller at work.

The Chinese method of fortune-telling is based on one’s birthdate and time, according to the traditional lunar calendar. From that snippet of information, our fortune-teller covered a piece of paper in dense calculations and managed to deduce a great deal: that she had a brother, a rough period from age 15-20 (then again, who doesn’t?), and big changes coming. He warned that 2012 would be a rough year, but that after that her career would improve by leaps and bounds. Her children would mostly be boys, and the oldest boy would be especially brilliant. Music to the ears of a Chinese parent, I’m sure! A particularly sticky question was resolved with an additional procedure that looked a bit like rune-casting. Of course, there was romance advice, too, but some secrets should stay between a girl and her fortune-teller!

I was sorely tempted to get my own fortune told, but the high price (300 RMB, or around $45 at the current exchange rate) deterred me, for now. I decided to save my kuai for our next destination, the tailor shop. Because while knowing my future would nice, new clothes will actually make it better!

Interested in knowing your own future? We found Jane’s fortune-teller in an alley south of the Lama Temple. Signs outside his office advertised 起名 and 算命. If you don’t speak Mandarin, you’ll need to bring a translator — he didn’t speak English and had a thick accent to boot.

eGuidebooks: A Review

Jessica Marsden — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:24:48 +0000

In the weeks leading up to my trip to Taiwan, our paper copy of the Taiwan Lonely Planet was lost in the mail. And no Beijing bookstore carries it, probably because it doesn’t lump Taiwan in with the rest of China. Since I’m not yet the kind of traveler who goes guidebook-less, I decided the time would be ripe for experimenting with an e-Guidebook. Specifically, the Kindle edition of the Taiwan LP, to be read on my iPod Touch. Read on for my review.

One of these is smaller than the other.

PROS OF THE E-GUIDEBOOK

Size: It made my purse so much lighter to abandon the paper guidebook and just carry my iPod… which I would have been carrying anyway. This is by far the biggest upside to the e-book.
Bookmarking: You can “highlight” text in the Kindle edition, and your highlights are then added to the Table of Contents page for easy access. Even better than dogeared pages, since you immediately know which page you are turning to.
Zoom: I expected the maps to be the most annoying part of using an electronic version of Lonely Planet, but the iPod’s crisp screen made them easy to read and zoom in and out of.

CONS OF THE E-GUIDEBOOK

Speed: Not an issue with a paper guidebook, but moving between the (small) pages of the e-guidebook was noticeably slow, especially when I was trying to flip through many pages at once. Since the maps were randomly interspersed in the text, this was a pretty frequent annoyance.
Navigation: Some effort was made to add intra-book links to the text (particularly directing the reader to the relevant map), but WAY more are needed before the Kindle edition will be as easy to navigate as the paper book. Unfortunately, I imagine they are probably directing their focus towards creating new apps rather than improving Kindle editions.
Power: I was also using my iPod for regular reading, Google Maps and my Chinese dictionary, which meant that I had to charge it at least once a day and lived in fear of running out of power when we still needed the maps. You never have to recharge a paper guidebook!

OVERALL VERDICT: From a user’s perspective, the paper guidebook trounced the e-guidebook in every aspect but one: weight. But to me, that is a decisive factor. With the guidebook on my iPod, I could carry my dSLR without my shoulder falling off, or alternatively I could get away with just a small purse. Next time, I’ll use more bookmarks to mitigate some of the speed and navigation issues, but I’ll definitely be looking for the electronic edition.

A Taiwanese Complete Breakfast

Jessica Marsden — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 13:10:26 +0000

I wasn’t sure what to expect food-wise when I arrived in Taiwan. I knew whatever we found would be delicious — but what would we find? I’ve already regaled you with our day of eating in Tainan, but I left out the most intriguing part — breakfast!

No, this is not breakfast borscht. It's hong qu beef!

Naturally, it came in two stages, starting with 红麴牛肉 (hongqu niurou). Even our foodie host couldn’t explain quite what it was — the red sauce is fermented with yeast, and used to cook tender hunks of beef. The stew is topped off with a generous handful of fresh ginger. Not what I’d want to eat every day, necessarily, but highly interesting! It was followed up by a tasty, sweetish zongzi that combined sweet sticky rice with savory soy-flavored peanuts. Zongzi are usually eaten on the mainland around the Dragon Boat Festival, but in Tainan they sell like hotcakes year-round.

Although Tainan was the site of our most adventurous breakfast, throughout the trip I was surprised by many other new foods we encountered in the mornings. My quick rundown of the best Taiwan’s breakfast has to offer leaves off items like warm soymilk that are equally prevalent on the mainland:

Fan tuan (饭团): Before the trip, these were described to me as similar to Japanese onigiri. But really they are a whole different beats. Sticky rice is used to enclose a mix of fillings and — the key — a big stick of crunchy fried dough. My favorite was the elusive sweet fan tuan, filled with sugar, powdered peanuts, and more sugar.
Dan bing (蛋饼): This is Taiwan’s competitor with the jian bing (煎饼), a mainland staple. It’s smaller, eggier and can come filled with chicken — but my heart still lies with the jian bing. Sorry, Taiwan!
Hou pian (后片): Usually on the menu with 土司, a cute transliteration of toast, hou pian means “thick slice” and is just that. An extra-thick slice of bread comes slathered in your choice of jam, chocolate spread, peanut butter or condensed milk. A Western import that has been fully assimilated into the Tawanese diet!
Fresh tropical fruit: Seemingly not part of a Taiwanese complete breakfast, since we often had to look pretty hard to search it out. But it was worth the effort — the fruit there was delicious, and cheap. I stuffed my face with papaya on a daily basis.

How to Survive the Holidays Abroad

Jessica Marsden — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 14:57:35 +0000

This week marks the beginning of what is probably the roughest six weeks out of any expat or long-term traveler’s year: the holidays. If you’re not lucky enough to have a long vacation and the cash for a plane fare, making it through the holiday season can be an emotional challenge. This will be my third Thanksgiving and Christmas in China, and while it gets easier with time, it’s still stressful. But there are a few principles I try to keep in mind to make the holiday season fun — inevitable touch of homesickness notwithstanding!

A wine bottle for a rolling pin and a pillowcase for a pastry board -- why not?

1. Stay in touch with family & friends. If the inventors of Skype didn’t have December in mind, they should have. VOIP calling is a low-cost lifesaver during this time of year. You can dial into Thanksgiving preparations, Christmas morning presents, and New Year’s resolution-making, almost as if you were there in the flesh. Talking to friends and family is the best way I’ve found to banish the blues.

2. Recreate family traditions. So you’re stuck in China with nary a turkey to be found — might as well say good-bye to Thanksgiving, right? Nope! By getting a bit creative (and subbing in chicken for turkey), my friends and I have had elaborate Thanksgiving dinners for two — soon to be three — years running. With only a toaster oven and a hotplate, I’ve made pies, stuffings and enough chicken to feed 16 people. On Christmas, I’ve eaten the same stuffed eggs and sticky buns as my family back in the States. Sure, the ingredients aren’t quite the same, but it tastes good and is just as comforting as the real thing.

3. Embrace new friends. The holidays are the perfect time to embrace the new friends you’ve made — whether you’ve known them for three months, three days, or three hours! Fellow foreigners are likely experiencing the same feelings of homesickness, while local friends may be curious to know more about Western holidays. Whatever the circumstances, celebrating a holiday together is a surefire way to forge an even deeper relationship.

4. Celebrate! The worst thing you can do is let the holiday-season blues keep you from having a good time. Spend time on Skype and thinking about your family, but then get out and make it a holiday wherever you are. You might choose to celebrate with a semi-traditional Thanksgiving feast or with a nontraditional Christmas-Day scuba dive. I hope to have many more holiday dinners with my family, but I know I will always cherish these years of ragtag feasts and miniature Christmas trees, since they’re not likely to happen again.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Snapshot: Autumn in Beijing

Jessica Marsden — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:09:44 +0000

Amid a week of “crazy bad” air pollution here in Beijing, the one saving grace has been the beautiful fall colors that can be seen around the city. Once known for being treeless, a pre-Olympics tree-planting campaign has introduced a fair amount of greenery to Beijing’s streets. And the parks and university campuses have always had their fair share of tree-lined paths. I caught this gorgeous example on an impromptu visit to Ritan Park, east of the 2nd Ring Road. The orange and red leaves almost manage to block out the hazy sky!

This is the latest in a series of Friday snapshots featuring photos from my travels in China and beyond. Stay on top of all my latest exploits by subscribing to my RSS feed.

A Tainan Feast (Or Two… Or Three)

Jessica Marsden — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:03:12 +0000

In Tainan, our last stop in Taiwan, we had the luckiest break of our trip: My roommate’s dad’s coworker’s brother (convoluted much?) is a Tainan native and quite a foodie, and he gave us an amazing 24-hour tour of the city’s cuisine. To give you a sense of the variety of food on offer in Taiwan, here’s a recap of our culinary adventure:

Donggua cha: Donggua, or winter melon, is usually prepared as a vegetable in mainland China, but in Taiwan it is processed and used to flavor a delicious variation on the usual milk tea. The donggua imparts a rather earthy flavor — almost like Korean barley tea. We had ours sweet and milkless, with a generous portion of boba (dark chewy tapioca balls).
Baozi: For a pit stop in between temples, we split a large soft baozi (steamed dumpling) with pork, mushrooms and a preserved egg yolk.

In between snacks, we checked out Tainan's big sights, including the Chikan Towers. Originally a Dutch fort, it was rebuilt by the Qing..

Migao, fish balls, and assorted cold seafood nibbles: At two stalls deep inside a covered market, we sampled a few plates of local seafood goodies. A “tasting plate” of cold items included shark skin (!), fried shrimp rolls (almost like a miniature egg roll), and a terrine of crab. We shared a small bowl of fish and pork balls, plus a generous portion of migao (米糕): sticky rice topped with mushrooms, fatty pork, daikon, and a sweet brown sauce.
Hongcha: Hongcha is ubiquitous in Taiwan, but this was apparently the old fashioned style — a little less sweet and more strongly tea-tasting. It actually reminded me more of American-style iced tea.
Oyster omelette and fried oysters: You wouldn’t have known it from the modern decor, but the oyster restaurant we visited in Anping was actually an “old famous brand.” I ate countless oyster omelets (蚵仔煎) over the course of my stay in Taiwan, but this was the best by far. The oysters were big, the egg was fresh, and the chewy potato starch didn’t overwhelm the dish. And what’s not to like about tiny, peppery fried oysters?
Seafood feast: After our afternoon snacks, it was time for dinner! We joined our host’s extended family for an exceptionally delicious seafood feast. Highlights included a huge slab of buttery wild cod, more shrimp rolls, steamed shrimp, steamed sea snails and a sweet-and sour fish.

By dessert, I remembered that I was still a blogger!

Eight-treasure ice: Our bellies were bursting, but there was one more stop before bed: dessert! Eight-treasure ice is a more traditional variation on the shaved ice desserts that are available across Taiwan, and it can actually be served hot or cold. For the cold variation, a bowl containing the “eight treasures” — red beans, green beans, lotus seeds, oatmeal and four other ingredients — is doused in a sweet brown sauce and then topped with a giant mound of shaved ice. Yes, it’s a little weird to eat beans in dessert — but delicious all the same!

I meant for this post to include the second part of our eating adventure — breakfast the next morning! But clearly, enough eating went on to warrant two posts, not one. So keep your eyes out!

This post is part of Wanderfood Wednesday! Head there for more posts on the intersection between food and travel!