“Do you like Chinese food” is a question that almost always comes up sooner or later in casual conversation with Chinese people. The speaker usually means, “Do you like Chinese-Chinese food” as opposed to American-Chinese food. For a better understanding, check out this TED Talk http://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_8_lee_looks_for_general_tso. The answer is, “yes but.”
I eat most of my meals in the canteen or cafeteria for university faculty and staff. The food is good--although not fancy. Meals are inexpensive: breakfast costs about 16 cents, lunch is about 32 cents, and dinner maybe a little more. Most days I eat breakfast in my room partly because I don’t want to get dressed to go to the canteen and partly because it isn’t what I want. It includes some familiar items, like hard boiled eggs, and other offerings that look more like lunch, such as cold pickled veggies. Millet porridge and steamed bread are also on the menu. Once a week, breakfast includes fried bread sticks which are broken up into in hot soy milk. One of the breakfast dishes I do like is very soft hot tofu. The consistency is like pudding, and it’s eaten in a bowl with a savoy soy gravy. I also like the rice porridge, but I add a hardboiled egg and a few pickled veggies.
Lunch and dinner include two dishes with meat--beef, pork, chicken, or seafood, a couple of sides with cooked mixed veggies, two selections of pickled or salted raw veggies, steamed or baked bread, rice, rice or millet porridge, and a version of egg drop soup. This day, lunch featured chicken with tree mushrooms and gourd (upper left), fish (upper right), pickled cucumber and salted cabbage (lower left), and rice, which is always served with lunch and dinner. About every other week, we get noodles.
Within five minutes’ walk of campus and the hostel, there are dozens of restaurants, small take-out operations--some more stable than others--and street food vendors with carts. I steer clear of the street food as it looks none too sanitary and rely on friends’ recommendations for restaurant food. In September, not long after I arrived, a Chinese student invited two American students and me to a party at one of the restaurants. As is the norm in situations like this, food is served family-style. Everyone is seated at large, round tables, the food is brought out and placed on a “lazy susan,” and guests serve themselves from all of the dishes. Although the dishes featured mostly recognizable ingredients, the presentation was different. To be polite, I tried a bite of everything, but didn’t opt for seconds on some items. So here are some pictures from the dinner party.
Fish in a fiery broth loaded with dried chiles.
An aside: Dalian is a coastal city, so fish and other saltwater seafood is abundant and fresh. Fish is most often served whole and tends to be bony but worth the work it takes to pick around the bones. Shrimp is also served whole and frequently not shelled before cooking, which presents a challenge. The question then is to peel or not to peel. Initially I did because I didn’t like the texture of the shells. This is messy especially if it’s in a sauce or breaded and fried. So, I avoided shrimp. More recently, I experimented with eating it shell and all, and decided that I liked it enough to overlook the extra crunch from eating the shells.
Another delicious discovery has been the bread and pastries. More on that next time.
