Kellen Smetana
Traveling by bicycle through rural China is not for the faint of stomach.
Dining In
We’ll start with the easiest. Dining in means pots of ramen. Lots of pots of ramen. At the moment we are probably averaging two each per day. They work as a simple dinner while camping or lunch on a speedy day – just add hot water. And the good news is that they have many more “exotic” flavors than Oodles of Noodles in the US and we are not sick of them yet. It’s an exciting day when we get a small prawn or hot pepper in our ramen pot.
Traveling by bicycle through rural China is not for the faint of stomach.
Dining In
We’ll start with the easiest. Dining in means pots of ramen. Lots of pots of ramen. At the moment we are probably averaging two each per day. They work as a simple dinner while camping or lunch on a speedy day – just add hot water. And the good news is that they have many more “exotic” flavors than Oodles of Noodles in the US and we are not sick of them yet. It’s an exciting day when we get a small prawn or hot pepper in our ramen pot.
Lots of pots of ramen
Breakfast and snacks consist of a mix of nuts, street vendor fruit, crackers, biscuits, the remains of our Hong Kong reserve of peanut butter, and any random assortment of crazy looking snacks. We have made an attempt to buy at least one new item each trip to the supermarket; this has led to everything from tasty milk-fragranced peanuts and dried cherry roll-ups to spicy dried green beans and a whole lot of stale Twinkie-like cakes.
Dining Out
This is where the fun begins. Each meal is truly an adventure, and as we’re using up so much energy we pretty much have to eat everything that’s set in front of us. Here’s a short anecdote of our typical restaurant experience:
In a suburb or Guilin, we enter streetside restaurant for dinner. We point to an open table, they nod, we sit. Ben makes the shape of a menu with his hands. The entire staff laughs as if to say “are you serious?” and then bring us a menu entirely in Mandarin characters. We identify the different sections by prices (meats, vegetable plates, and a whole bunch of “other stuff”) and pick a couple items randomly.
Dining Out
This is where the fun begins. Each meal is truly an adventure, and as we’re using up so much energy we pretty much have to eat everything that’s set in front of us. Here’s a short anecdote of our typical restaurant experience:
In a suburb or Guilin, we enter streetside restaurant for dinner. We point to an open table, they nod, we sit. Ben makes the shape of a menu with his hands. The entire staff laughs as if to say “are you serious?” and then bring us a menu entirely in Mandarin characters. We identify the different sections by prices (meats, vegetable plates, and a whole bunch of “other stuff”) and pick a couple items randomly.
What would you like to eat?
Now, we have tried to learn the words and characters for chicken, beef, and rice, and I’ve picked up numbers from 1-10, but it’s still a crapshoot. Imagine walking into an Applebees just knowing how to say the word “chicken.” You can see how that falls apart pretty quickly; that or you end up with an entire chicken cut up on a plate in front of you (this has happened once). So we just end up selecting randomly from the menu as we figure that will give us a good taste of the region anyway.
In this particular instance they just laughed at our choices and stirred up some spices. Not quite understanding the response, we picked a couple other items. The misunderstanding continued, so the five people – including the chef – now around our table motioned for me to get up. As if I was marching to the guillotine, I was led through the restaurant, across an outdoor courtyard, and into the kitchen. The chef got a net, caught an eel from a tank, and handed it to me. “Ahhh, ok. No xiexie!” I assumed we were trying to order a fish pot per kilo without telling them how much we wanted. “Hmm…” I looked around. “How about that… in that.. with those… it’s ok?” I pointed to a chicken, a large pot, and a mix of vegetables. Laughter and a bunch of affirmative nods. We ended up with a chicken hot pot stew including, of course, head and feet. And it was pretty tasty!
Occasionally we’ll even point to what others are having if it looks appealing (though not to the bottles of straight rice whiskey many men drink with lunch). Meals include hot pots (big stews of meat and vegetables still cooking over a flame on the table) and a mix of stir fry’s, rice, and noodles with black bean sauce, oyster sauce, or any number of spicy sauces. Our favorite meal so far was an incredibly spicy fish hot pot in Guiyang. We both teared up and blew our noses a dozen times during the meal but the flavor was unbelievable. As we’ve been usually eating at street vendors and roadside restaurants, it was also by far our most expensive meal of the trip; total bill: $6.50 each.
In this particular instance they just laughed at our choices and stirred up some spices. Not quite understanding the response, we picked a couple other items. The misunderstanding continued, so the five people – including the chef – now around our table motioned for me to get up. As if I was marching to the guillotine, I was led through the restaurant, across an outdoor courtyard, and into the kitchen. The chef got a net, caught an eel from a tank, and handed it to me. “Ahhh, ok. No xiexie!” I assumed we were trying to order a fish pot per kilo without telling them how much we wanted. “Hmm…” I looked around. “How about that… in that.. with those… it’s ok?” I pointed to a chicken, a large pot, and a mix of vegetables. Laughter and a bunch of affirmative nods. We ended up with a chicken hot pot stew including, of course, head and feet. And it was pretty tasty!
Occasionally we’ll even point to what others are having if it looks appealing (though not to the bottles of straight rice whiskey many men drink with lunch). Meals include hot pots (big stews of meat and vegetables still cooking over a flame on the table) and a mix of stir fry’s, rice, and noodles with black bean sauce, oyster sauce, or any number of spicy sauces. Our favorite meal so far was an incredibly spicy fish hot pot in Guiyang. We both teared up and blew our noses a dozen times during the meal but the flavor was unbelievable. As we’ve been usually eating at street vendors and roadside restaurants, it was also by far our most expensive meal of the trip; total bill: $6.50 each.
The beginning
And end of our favorite hot pot. Look at all the peppers!
We will continue to keep it an adventure and are looking forward to setting our tongues on fire again with some huiguo rou and gongbao jiding in Sichuan.
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