(no subject)
Mar. 5th, 2013 10:01 pmMissing China :P especially the food.
Jianbing - we had these twice. The first time was at a stand that sold the traditional kind (exactly what you see them making here) but that looked a bit adventurous for me and I had already eaten anyways, so I got a dessert variation that I don't see mentioned anywhere online, but all the street vendors we saw offered dessert varieties with choices of ingredients like banana and chocolate (without that crunchy thing, I am not sure what that's called or what it even is*; and they generally wouldn't put egg in the dessert ones either). I got mine with just chocolate, it was fucking delicious.
*ETA: I have found out that it's called youtiao and is a kind of fried bread.
The second time, it wasn't from the regular sort of street vendor, but rather from a...street vendor that had graduated into a storefront? I'm not sure how to explain these in American terms because we don't seem to have them, but most other countries do. Basically a little place that sells food that's just a kitchen with a window you can order out of. No indoor area for customers. It's like a drive-thru except you're walking :P anyways, this place served both regular Jianbing and then a bunch of specialty fillings, and they LOADED THEM ALL WITH KETCHUP. It was really surprising because we hadn't seen ketchup all trip outside of some tiny packets in McDonalds, but apparently these people had ketchup and they absolutely loaded the jianbing with them. (I didn't get the standard jianbing - again - mine was sliced duck.)
Since I'm talking about these little restaurants with no indoor, let alone indoor seating...one of my favorites was one that I don't remember the name of, but the basic concept was WE HAVE A FRYER! They served fried eeeeverything. Including seafood, which was awesome (and expected) since we were in Shanghai. Although the brown sugar and cinnamon on my chicken nuggets was a bit of a surprise. But omg, stick-o'-fried-squid. Nommm.
Jianbing - we had these twice. The first time was at a stand that sold the traditional kind (exactly what you see them making here) but that looked a bit adventurous for me and I had already eaten anyways, so I got a dessert variation that I don't see mentioned anywhere online, but all the street vendors we saw offered dessert varieties with choices of ingredients like banana and chocolate (without that crunchy thing, I am not sure what that's called or what it even is*; and they generally wouldn't put egg in the dessert ones either). I got mine with just chocolate, it was fucking delicious.
*ETA: I have found out that it's called youtiao and is a kind of fried bread.
The second time, it wasn't from the regular sort of street vendor, but rather from a...street vendor that had graduated into a storefront? I'm not sure how to explain these in American terms because we don't seem to have them, but most other countries do. Basically a little place that sells food that's just a kitchen with a window you can order out of. No indoor area for customers. It's like a drive-thru except you're walking :P anyways, this place served both regular Jianbing and then a bunch of specialty fillings, and they LOADED THEM ALL WITH KETCHUP. It was really surprising because we hadn't seen ketchup all trip outside of some tiny packets in McDonalds, but apparently these people had ketchup and they absolutely loaded the jianbing with them. (I didn't get the standard jianbing - again - mine was sliced duck.)
Since I'm talking about these little restaurants with no indoor, let alone indoor seating...one of my favorites was one that I don't remember the name of, but the basic concept was WE HAVE A FRYER! They served fried eeeeverything. Including seafood, which was awesome (and expected) since we were in Shanghai. Although the brown sugar and cinnamon on my chicken nuggets was a bit of a surprise. But omg, stick-o'-fried-squid. Nommm.