These are a Few of my Favorite Things: Food

So, when I was in China, food was probably one of my favorite things xD!!! I'm totally and madly in love with Chinese food, and by Chinese food I mean REAL Chinese food. Not that stuff they sell all packaged up that you pop in the microwave or that fast food crap (I have... issues with fast food...). I'm talking about real, true, homemade Chinese food, and boy did I get that by the buckets full!!!

Dinner was what brought everyone in my Chinese family together. Sitting around the table with the food all set out in front of you. Surrounded by 9 people that you feel comfortable calling family... Those were probably some of the my favorite times in China. You see, Chinese people eat differently then American's do (OMJesus what a shocker!! Different cultures do different things?! I'm speechless ;) )

How it goes down is everyone sits around the table and then you have x number of dishes that are placed in the middle of the table. You are given a bowl or rice (or a bowl and get off your lazy butt and go get the rice yourself). Then you just take a piece or two of food at a time, put it in the rice so that the rice gets all the yummy flavors of the food :) (I know this may be a bit of a shocker to some people, but Chinese actually do NOT put soy sauce on their rice. It's not polite. So they use the sauce from the food instead.

Okay! Back out of my total ADD moment! This whole thing is suppose to be about some of my favorite things to eat in China! I have pictures of some of them, but most I'm probably just going to be googling (honestly... I'm not sure what some of the stuff I ate even was '.'...)

Favorite Street Food:
Okay, so this isn't even a hard one to answer!! My favorite food was Jiao zi/Bao zi from the store that was just a 5 minute walk from school!! Jiao zi are dumplings and Bao zi are like buns filled with meat! I loved the smell of the little open air shop, and I loved the taste of the A Yi (aunties) food even more!! If you sat in and ate, the buns and dumplings came straight onto your table in the wicker baskets that they were steamed in. If you were on the run, she would through a bunch into a box and bag it up with a pair of chopsticks. You... GAH! You just don't understand how unbelievably addicting these little guys were!! And, at only about 4 yuan for 10 dumplings or 6 buns, they were irresistible!

The Jiao zi are the smaller ones on the right, and there is one
Bao zi on the far back basket. Also, you could put some
vinegar on them, but I think they were MUCH better on
their own.

View of the shop and over to the right is where she would
steam everything.

Favorite School Food:

Another extremely easy choice! Since normal school food is... well... gross in any country you go to... I always got my food over at the school store! There, I found something yummy and amazing called 牛肉面-老坛酸菜 (Niu Rou Mian - Lao Tan Suan Cai)[Beef flavored ramen with sour veggies] which is made by 巧面馆 (Qiao Mian Guan)[Artful Noodle House]. This stuff was SUPER yummy... and... super filling #.# It was HUGH!!! I swear you could talk a bath in one of these bowls!! The funny thing was, I knew if was ramen, but all of the instructions to make is where it Chinese! My friends and I had to go and find one of the students to help us figure out how to make is (lol)

My friends and I named the dude on the front 'Asian Tony
Stark' cause we TOTALLY think we're cool... making our
Ironman references xD

Favorite American Food in China:

Don't judge me, but it definitely has to be the Starbucks Java Chip Frappuccino!! Everytime we hit a starbucks, that is always what I got (because my usual London Fog wasn't exactly translatable...). The one thing I HATED about the Chinese Starbucks, though, was that a cup of coffee STILL costs an arm and a leg!! GAH!!!

**drool drool drool** 

Favorite Food my A Yi Made:

Now THIS one's a toss up... There are two things that my A Yi (Auntie) would make for dinner that absolutely made me wish I had 10 stomachs; 牛肉丝 (Niu Rou Si) [Beef Strips] and 土豆丝(Tu Dou Si) [Potato Strips]. They were so yummy, and the sauce on the Beef was to DIE for! Those two are probably the two foods I miss the most from China!

牛肉丝

土豆丝

Favorite Fruit:

Another tough decision... I really liked eating Lychee, but also, the pears in China are 1000x times better then pears in America (Why? The world may never know!!). Also, every night around 9ish, my family would crack open a small little watermelon and eat it around the television outside and that was more of a fun fruit memory that made me like watermelon again~ If I had to choose one though... I'd have to say that Lychee were my favorite

Watermelon

Lychee

Asian Pears, which I got a LOT of because my Host family
owned a pear farm! We had over 50 acres of pear trees!

Favorite Veggie:

I really liked a vegetable called 空心菜 (Kong Xin Cai) which literally means Empty Heart Vegetable. It was in season when we were in Xinjin, so we got our fill of it. I was actually really surprised that I liked it, because usually I'm not a particular fan of greens (or most veggies...) But I REALLY liked these =)

Tastes a lot better than it looks, I promise

And last but certainly not least

Favorite Dessert:
I think I liked this dessert, not really for it's taste, even though it is yummy, but for the way it looks... It's a kind of ice cream that is hard chocolate on the outside, then a layer of ice cream, then the rest of the inside is filled with chocolate and popped rice (kind of like rice krispies). It's called... well.... I actually don't know what it's called... Here's a picture, if you can tell me what it is, you get a gold star!!

xD yummy AND fun to eat ;D It also comes in
flavors like grape!... well... I think it's grape...

And that's about it. I hope you liked this little blog about my favorite things~~ I'm thinking of doing more, but your feedback is much appreciated~

再见

♪o｟＾∇＾｠o☆ ～珊珊