Monday, May 30, 2011

Two weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me why haven't updated the blog. We had done a lot of baking several months ago, but I never downloaded the photos. I'll post those later.

I'm leaving for China in less than a week for vacation with my parents and brother, and I remembered I had taken some photos last year (which I did download to my computer). One of the cities we visited last year was Shanghai, and I had the most delicious Shanghainese food I've ever had. We tried several restaurants for xiao long bao 包 . (If you look closely at the menu, you can see that this restaurant is named the same as the one in Monterey Park and Temple City!)

xiao long bao
I liked visiting the supermarket to stock up on snacks. This bag of chips caught my attention - Italian Red Meat Flavor - as I had never seen it in North America before. I wish I had bought it to have tried it out.


I got super excited when I saw the Little Sheep Hot Pot storefront around the corner from the hotel, but it was still under renovation. I had seen an ad in the Chinese newspaper in LA almost two years ago that Little Sheep was coming soon to LA and Seattle, but I still haven't been to either location since they opened. The sauce is great, and you can actually buy the soup base at 99 Ranch Market.

After Shanghai, I visited Chengdu and Emei Shan but I didn't take many photos of the food there. We had hotpot a few times. The sight of a bright red broth made me lose my appetite. A friend of mine recently came back from a mission trip to Chongqing and she brought back with her some snacks to share. Also very spicy! The area around Emei Shan is much more rural. One day as we were eating lunch, we saw the restaurant workers kill and pluck a chicken, and then proceeded to cook it. Not exactly what you would want to show your customers in North America. 

At our first night in Lijiang, we tried some local Naxi food. 


We tried some of these as well. So much selection! One bag of yak meat ended up being confiscated when I arrived at Taiwan a few days later.  :(

Ate quite a bit of street food when I was there too. I think I liked the street food best since I could sample many different types.






And before we left Lijiang, we enjoyed some afternoon tea. How relaxing.