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One thing that struck me in Chengdu was how many pet dogs there were.
Little dogs, medium-sized dogs, a few huge dogs -- dogs were everywhere. Most wore jackets or sweaters (it was the depth of a chilly winter, after all), some rode in bicycle baskets. Dogs in shops, dogs in parks (Chengdu's municipal government should be lauded for its efforts at creating green spaces), dogs cradled like babies, dogs on chairs and on laps, dogs inside homes and outside, patrolling their patch of sidewalk. And not mean, wild dogs either, but well cared-for, well-fed dogs who've obviously been raised as companions, not guard animals.
It's something you just wouldn't have seen 15 years ago. It's a sign of rising affluence, I suppose, a burgeoning middle class with money to spare. But who knows? Maybe it's a sign of something else too -- a slowly changing attitude toward an animal often called 'man's best friend'.
Coincidentally, the evening we returned to Kuala Lumpur I stumbled across (while enjoying a free, unrestricted browse of the internet for the first time in three weeks) a link to story in the Chongqing Evening News about a possible 'ban' on dog meat. We'd been in Chongqing just a week before; judging by the number of restaurants advertising xiang rou ('fragrant meat', as dog meat is known in China) and dog hot pot, the possibility of dog disappearing from menus in China seemed rather slim. So I decided to investigate a bit.
It turns out that the proposed ban is not really a ban, and is unlikely to be enacted into law in any form any time soon. That doesn't mean it might not happen some day, though. You can read our story about China's 'dog meat ban', and why the media hoopla over it is much ado about not much at all, over at Zester Daily.
The Zester story is an analysis, not an opinion piece. But this is a blog, so I'm going to use this space to alert you to Animals Asia, an organization based in Hong Kong that has been working to change attitudes to dogs, cats, and other animals such as bears, in China, Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia for many years -- well worth checking out if you're an animal welfare advocate.
Last August, a chance encounter on a bus in Himachal Pradesh (northern India) led Dave to a school for young Tibetan refugees, where he spent several days photographing the kids and their daily routine. His contact was a young man who walked across the Tibetan-Indian border when he was just five.
Later today American President Obama meets the Dalai Lama for the first time. Dave thought it was a good time to revisit the Tibetan Children's Village. See the slideshow (be sure to click on 'captions') here.
The Party's 5-point star still shines on these baked and griddled guo kui
And you thought we were done with Sichuan. Heck, we're not even finished with guo kui.
Meat-riddled, crisp-griddled dough is all well and good, but a chewy pillow of freshly made flatbread has its own special appeal. And in Sichuan it assumes a number of delicious forms.
On a toe-numblingly chill morning in Langzhong we found this vendor selling thick guo kui about 5.5 inches / 14 cm in diamter. Working from a compact (and undeniably cute) wheeled wooden prep stall cum display case,
she rolls out, griddles, and warms in her tandoor-like oven made from a metal drum flatbreads in three flavors: baide ("white", or plain), xiande (savory, seasoned with salt and the barest hint of ground Sichuan peppercorn, and tiande ("sweet"). Though we'll never turn up our nose at any food seasoned with Sichuan peppercorn as an ingredient, it was her sweet guo kui, from which smoky "red" (brown, really) cane sugar oozes like the filling from a molten flourless chocolate cake, that we couldn't resist.
Big enough to serve as hand warmers as well as breakfast, her flatbreads boast an unbeatable glutenous chew tempered by a wee bit of surface crispness, and lots of wholesome wheat flavor. They'd rival any artisan loaf I've eaten elsewhere in the world.
She guilds the lily with a well-worn wooden stamp, with which she presses a sweetly retro 5-point star into the surface of each flatbread. I sorely coveted that stamp ... and I've thought about these guo kui at least once a day since we left Langzhong.
Back in Chengdu, a common sight on the street are these oval guo kui made in a tandoor-style oven with a narrow opening and no griddle.
Our partner in local gluttony J introduced us to these thinner. slightly crispier, almost pancakey flatbreads on our first night in town. The man who sold us one each of his xiande (ever-so-lightly flavored with dried chili) and tiande (with granulated cane sugar rolled right into the dough) guo kui was from Anhui province.
Anhui-style sweet guo kui baking in an oil drum oven
Over subsequent days we began to notice vendors (women, mostly) selling this type of guo kui all over the city, and every one told us they were natives of Anhui, from its capital Hefei or nearby.
How is it, we wondered, that a tribe of Hefei folks found themselves in Chengdu selling guo kui? Why Chengdu? And are there communities of Anhui guo kui sellers in other Chinese cities as well? (Please weigh in on this if you're able.)
Like other flatbread sellers these gals (and the single guy we met) roll their dough out on the spot.
I have to be honest -- we weren't quite as enamored of these Anhui-style flatbreads as we were of our Langzhong dough pies. Because they're so thin they go a bit stiff the minute they start to lose heat ... and in terms of flavor a sprinkle of granulated white sugar just can't compete with a lake of melted brown sugar. But if you can get them hot out of the tandoor the savory version is just fine, a pleasant diversion to carry you until your next culinary discovery.
Which, if you're lucky, just might be a Sichuanese French dip.
I'm first and foremost a dumpling and chili person, and all I wanted from my last morning of grazing in Sichuan was a steady parade of jiaozi in spicy red oil. I got it, in spades (and you'll see more of that later) but I also got something I wasn't looking for: perhaps the best sandwich -- no, make that the best three sandwiches -- I've ever eaten.
North of Tianfu Square, back behind the big Mao statue and kitty corner to the Sheraton Hotel, sits a nondescript restaurant that's called something like "The Original Chengdu Dandan Mian". Next to the shop's entrance is a window behind which truly amazing things are being done with wheat dough.
Behind that window, said wheat dough is being rolled into flat rounds, slapped onto the sides of a clay oven, left to puff and blister, and then transferred to a seasoned griddle where it continues to cooks through.
Then those soft, puffy dough discs are transferred to nearby wooden cutting board where, still hot from the oven, they're split
and stuffed with your choice of savory fillings -- like translucent slices of crunchy pig ear, dressed in a piquant sauce of chili and sesame oils, black vinegar, sugar, and seasoned soy sauce,
Guo kui filled with sweet and spicy sliced and dressed pig ear
or pieces of pork stir-fried with sweet and hot fresh green peppers, a melange of mild and spicy, tender and crispy, rich and fatty while at the same time fresh and green.
A stir-fry of pork and green pepper (hot and mild) fills this guo kui
The best of the bunch, however, is the local version of the French dip.
To make one of these the shop's guo kui mistress piles slices of paper-thin roast pork in a small bowl and douses them with a thin but richly meaty jus fragrant with anise and cinnamon. She then stuffs the anointed pork slices into a flatbread, following with lashings of jus before quickly sliding the whole gorgeous, dripping mess into a plastic bag.
The bread is hot and fresh and crispy-skinned, so it defies disintegration, maintaining integrity to the last bite. Yet its its insides soak up the gravy like a sponge. Every mouthful starts with a rush of jus -- then, chewy breadh and tender pork. There's no vegetable garnish, no condiments mucking things up. Just meat and dough, and spiced meat juices.
It's a sandwich to turn a dumpling fanatic's thoughts away from doughy things that are steamed and boiled instead of baked and griddle-crisped. For a while, anyway.
Chengdu Dandan Mian, No. 34 Renmin Zhong Road (kitty-corner to the Sheraton Lido Hotel). Buy your ticket inside the shop. A meat-filled guokui will set you back 5 yuan (about 85 cents).
Happy Lunar New Year!
May the Year of the Tiger be a roaring good one for you and yours.
Popped rice -- brown hulls are visible in the center of the photo
Our Thai helper Wan has been with Dave and I since 2002, when we lived in Bangkok. After more than 8 years of the three of us under one roof she's like a member of the family. It's thanks to Wan that we're able to do what we do; given our three dogs and two cats traveling 6 months out of the year for a living would be out of the question if not for her. When we leave we know that everything -- living and otherwise -- will be in competent and loving hands until we get back. And you can't put a price peace of mind like that.
Twice a year we pack Wan off to her village near Buriram, in Thailand's northeast Isaan region, for a few weeks of family, food, and R & R. She leaves carrying suitcases bursting with edible presents my old food magazines ("When I retire I'll relax in my new house and enjoy looking at them."). When she returns to KL she's maxed out her weight limit with foods from home.
There's always something for us -- usually long-grained red rice (deliciously nutty) from her village, maybe some dried red chilies or kanom (sweets). Back from her last trip in December, Wan gifted us a plastic tub of the best Thai coconut palm sugar I've ever tasted, purchased on a Bangkok street from a southern Thai lady who comes north a couple times a year to sell her family's product. I've cooked with it some, but mostly we've been eating it like candy, straight from the tub, apportioned out a tiny tip-of-a-spoonful at a time.
From her last visit home Wan also carried a bag of un-hulled sticky rice. One day last week I returned home to the smell of toast --she was cooking the rice in a dry pan like popcorn.
"I'm making krayasaat just like in my village," Wan announced. Which got me very excited indeed.
Krayasaat is a traditional Thai confection made with popped rice -- something along the lines of the best rice krispie treat you've ever eaten only one hundred times tastier. We had our last taste of krayasaat a few years ago in Bangkok, when we bought a portion from a batch just made that morning by the owner of a beauty parlor Suan Plu market. It was caramely with palm sugar and boasted lots of roasted peanuts and sesame seeds; not too sweet, more snack than candy.
Krayasaat, made with kao mao colored with pandan
Later that day the scent of palm sugar heating in a pan drew me to Wan's kitchen (just me and my notebook; Dave, if he's attached to a camera, is rarely welcome there). She was stirring the same type of palm sugar she'd gifted us with coconut oil over a low heat. Next to her cooktop sat a bowl of white sesame seeds, another of lightly blistered peanuts that she'd roasted herself, and still another of kao mao, young rice that's been toasted and pounded in a process similar to -- but nowhere near as long and labor-intensive as -- the one that produces Philippine duman.
"So you use palm sugar to make krayasaat?" I asked Wan.
"Arai gaw dai," she answered, using her favorite phrase ("Up to you.") "If you like to use palm sugar OK. If you want to use white sugar you can do."
"OK then," I parried, pen and notebook ready. "How about the popped rice? Do you have to use sticky rice?"
"Arai gaw dai. Sticky rice, regular rice, either can do."
"Well Wan, what are the other ingredients? Palm sugar, coconut oil, popped rice.."
"Arai gaw dai, Khun Robyn!" Exaggerated eye rolling at this point, and I think I heard a snort or two. "You like peanut, put peanut. You like sesame, OK. You don't like, you don't put!"
"Salt?"
"Arai gaw dai."
"Should you include kao mao?"
"Arai gaw dai."
One solid instruction only did Wan offer: the finished krayasaat shouldn't be caramel-sticky. Hers was sweet, but each ingredient remained distinct. It was a smoky, coconuty-peanuty treat to eat with a spoon, not with one's hands.
And next time she makes it I'm going to stay out of the kitchen.
Wan's Krayasaat
Coconut oil. No question.Palm sugar or white sugar, up to you
Kao mao, if you like it.
Sesame seeds -- or not, up to you
Roasted peanuts maybe -- depends on your taste
Salt, unless you don't like the salty in which case no need. Up to you.
Puffed rice, not too much so it's all coated when you finish. But enough rice so it's not sticky
Heat coconut oil and palm sugar (proportions up to you) in a pan till soft. Stir in kao mao, sesame seeds and roasted peanuts if using -- Up To You! -- salt (if you like salty). Stir, then pour over puffed rice. Mix everything together, spread in a dish, and enjoy.
City dwellers become weekend farmers on an organic farm outside Chengdu
I'm mired in deadlines and rewrites, but Dave and I have a new piece up at food and wine website Zester Daily -- which includes a slideshow -- about an organic farm outside Chengdu where we spent an enjoyable -- albeit chilly -- morning last month. The family that runs the farm is part of a budding movement, one that we look forward to further documenting on a return trip to China in the coming months.
Since this is a food blog it bears noting that our visit ended with a home-cooked vegetarian meal that was truly one of the best that we ate in while Sichuan. If you find yourself in Chengdu you can do the same. But you can read about that over at the Zester.
Have a great and delicious weekend, everyone!
Who needs meat? Our visit to an organic farm outside Chengdu finished with a tasty vegetarian meal
Much of what I write for publication, whether it be in old-fashioned print or on the web, is about what's new or relatively new, or about things or phenomena that have some relation to or bearing on what's happening right now.
As one of my editors says: 'Timely, not timeless.'
But if left to my own devices (like this blog) I'm more often drawn to the latter than the former. For instance, I couldn't tell you what's 'new' and 'hot' on KL's culinary scene because it's something I just don't pay attention to.
That said, I like being 'forced' ('challenged' is a nicer way of putting it) to pitch and accept assignments that lie outside my comfort zone, to research and write about things that are not so intrinsically 'me'. Stretching my wings makes me better at what I do, I think, even if the process is sometimes a pain in the a#%.
Once in a great while I get a chance to write about something I know inside and out, places and people that I really feel something for. And it makes me happy.
Such was the case with an article Dave and I did for this month's Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia, on a few restaurants in KL that have stood the test of time. These 'old kitchens' feel like our second homes; they're as comfortable as a broken-in pair of flip-flops. We go knowing that when we walk in the door we'll be greeted like old friends and fed very, very well.
And though we've been trumpeting the virtues of Yut Kee, Sek Yuen, and Hong Ngek on this blog and in other places for almost five years now, it's such a pleasure to be able to shine a brighter light on them. A way to return the favor for all the wonderful memories they've given us.
Yut Kee's prep cook slices and dices beneath a garland of Chinese chives
I want to share a story about Hong Ngek.
We first dined there way back in 2006 (!) The meal was fantastic and we loved the restaurant's genuine old-style vibe, but somehow we lost track of it until about nine months ago, when a Hong Ngek thought bubble suddenly broke surface in my brain. We headed down to Tun H.S. Lee at noon, braved the crowded dining room, and snagged a table.
Hong Ngek near the end of a weekday lunch rush
After we placed our order owner Liew Hing Ling sauntered over.
"Long time no see!" she said, her sometimes stern mien breaking into a grin. "What's it been, three years?"
Well yes in fact, it had been almost three years exactly. We and Liew had exchanged maybe five words on that first visit to Hong Ngek in August 2006. But almost three years later she remembered us, and welcomed us as if we'd been dining at her restaurant once a week in the interim.
Hong Ngek's vegetarian masterpiece: three varieties of mushroom, gingko nuts, tofu skin, and gluten wrapped in lotus leaves
In reference to Liew, I don't think I can say it better than I did in the article:
"I don't forget faces," she smiles, displaying an attention to detail that's as evident at the table as it is at the front of the house.
Hong Ngek owner Liew Hing Ling (r) and co-workers
(A hint: Hit Hong Ngek two or three times and you're a regular. And that's when outstanding off-the-wall-menu dishes -- like steamed razor clams or 'two-way' pomfret, a whole fish stripped of one fillet, then steamed and served on a platter with the missing half, which has been cut into chunks, deep-fried, and cooked in dark soy sauce with red and green sweet peppers, Chinese celery, and loads of black pepper -- will begin finding their way to your table.)
Hong Ngek, 50 Jalan Tun HS Lee. Lunch only, closes at 7pm. Closed Sunday, and Saturday's a bit stripped down in terms of selection.
Sek Yuen, 313 Jalan Pudu. Lunch and dinner. Closed Monday.
Yut Kee, 35 Jalan Dang Wangi. Breakfast until 5pm or so. Closed Mondays and the last Sunday of the month.
Sichuan-style guo kui (stuffed flatbreads) browning in oil on a hot griddle
One of the Chengdu's most popular street snacks is guo kui (pronounced gwoh-kway), a thin meat-stuffed flatbread cooked in plenty of oil. (Guo kui is actually a generic term for flatbread; there are many types in Sichuan and elsewhere in China. We'll visit a few others in subsequent posts.)
In Chengdu, where in the evenings you can hardly walk 10 minutes without stumbling across a guo kui vendor, we didn't do a lot of sampling, because the flatbreads are usually deep-fried in a wok and then set in a wire basket to drain -- making them awfully greasy and thus less than tempting, especially if they've been out of the oil long enough to significantly cool.
But in Langzhong, a wonderful old town about six hours from Chengdu by bus, we came across a husband and wife making guo kui the old-fashioned way, with a combination griddle-oven.
While she kneads dough he pulls guo kui from the tandoor-like oven
As he cooked she kneaded the dough
and assembled the flatbreads.
To make the guo kui she pinched off a piece of dough, formed it into a ball between her palms, and then used her thumb to press it flat and shape it into a thin rectangle.
This she smeared -- again, using her thumb -- with a spare slick of lard and then with a meat 'paste' (the concept of a meat 'paste' will be familiar to anyone who's watched a proper Turkish lahmacun being made) seasoned with chilies, salt, and ground huajiao (Sichuan peppercorn).
Thin rectangles of dough are smeared with lard and spiced pork paste
After rolling up the rectangle from the bottom she stood the resulting fat cylinder on its end, flattened it with her palm, then rolled it out thin with a well-worn wooden rolling pin (note the pin's tapered ends, so different from the sort of rolling pin an American cook would use to roll out a pie crust).
Rolling out a meat-stuffed pinwheel of dough
What she ended up with was a pinwheeled stuffed pancake about 6 inches/15 cm in diameter, which her husband then shallow-fried on his griddle until it was well-browned.
Griddling the guokui, with finished specimens at rear
Oily, yes -- but after he finished frying a batch he pulled his griddle aside and placed the guo kui inside the charcoal-fired tandoor-like oven beneath it, before moving the griddle back over the oven (see the second photo from the top).
There in the oven, propped up their edges on a lip near the top, the guo kui simultaneously drained and crisped in its heat.
What emerged after several minutes was a mahogany-hued flatbread with a surprisingly light-on-grease exterior so crackly-crispy it shattered when I bit into it. Inside, the layered bread was chewy, almost soft, and shot through with savory bits of meat and dried chili. Each bite was different, some more doughy than porky, others punchy with spice. Sichuan peppercorn had been applied sparingly, so that it was more of a fragrance than a flavor that didn't slay me, but left a friendly little tingle on my lips and the tip of my tongue.
I have several regrets in reference to this guo kui. First, that I didn't purchase more, because after our return to Chengdu we never encountered a fried specimen anywhere near as appetizing as this one. Second, I kick myself for not trying one of this couple's tian (sweet) versions. I'd bet my life they're fantastic.
And finally, I regret that I didn't keep this guo kui all to myself, instead of sharing it with Dave and our friend J. Dave claims that that's the reason I have no proper photo of the finished product to offer you:
"You two were really going at that thing, and I didn't want teeth marks on my hand."
Note: You'll find a recipe for the deep-fried version in the beautiful, eminently readable, and recipe-reliable book Beyond the Great Wall, by J Alford and N Duguid.
When I took my little stroll down memory lane before we left for Chengdu I predicted we'd find that 'hole-in-the-wall restaurants with one wok and two tables are a thing of the past.' That's sort of the case; outside of the odd street food vendor there aren't many two-table operations anymore.
But I'm happy -- no, make that gleeful -- to report that the type of one-guy-in-the-kitchen eatery where we ate most of our dinners back in 1985 is still very much alive in spirit. It's just that now, instead a garage-like hovel it occupies a proper little room. Instead of one or two tables there may be five or six. And there's usually a wall rather than merely a meter of floor space separating cooking space from diner.
To find these places you must leave the major four-to-eight lane thoroughfares and ring roads. You need to poke around in smaller lanes, car-free alleys, and tight passageways that might look like they're closed to non-residents (they're not - or if they are, you'll be told so).
The neighborhoods around universities and colleges (of which Chengdu has quite a few) are particularly good hunting ground for rustic jiachang cai (home-style dishes). These joints aren't all created equal, of course, but you'll rarely be served anything worse than 'pretty good'. Quite often what you eat will be revelatory, especially if the only Sichuan dishes you've eaten have been prepared in a restaurant outside of Asia.
We stumbled across this little gem near the Sichuan Music Conservatory. It's a wonderful area in which to wander, still cut through with winding lanes and old-style lowrises -- from which occasionally drift the wail of a sax or the tinkle of piano keys -- and still very much a neighborhood in spite of many newish highrise complexes. Though it was almost 2:30pm, well past lunchtime, the owner happily ushered us to a table.
We ordered the sort of rustic-bordering-on-basic Sichuanese dishes that restaurants overseas always seem to muck up with overkill, and not a one disappointed.Bansan si ('cold three threads') -- a tangle of seeded cucumber and carrot shreds and bean thread noodles all tossed with chopped cilantro and peanuts in a spicy sweet-tart sauce -- was a refreshing teaser, a salad on steroids.
And yuxiang roupian ('fish-fragrance' meat slices), a dish that's long been an obsession of Dave's -- for good reason, when prepared as well as this version was. As much vegetable as meat (that's a good thing, in our book), it played crunchy stem lettuce and cloud ear shreds off chewy pork batons to wonderful textural effect. Everything was bathed in a light yet breathtakingly spicy and vinegar-tart sauce.
A misleadingly dull-sounding (to the Chinese pickle novice, anyway) suancai roupian (sour vegetable and meat pieces) fairly jumped off the plate with its tongue-prickling pickled mustard green. the sourness of the suancai balancing the pork's richness.
We finished with the most mundane of soups: fanqie jidan tang (tomato and egg soup), to which we requested that some green cabbage be added. The broth was pitch-perfect -- vegetal, light, barely there, as it should be, because this kind of soup is meant to cleanse the palate of a meal's meaty richness rather than dazzle in its own right.
(China is a generally an amazingly cheap place to eat so we haven't been highlighting prices in these Chengdu posts. But I can't resist sharing that this meal -- which, like every meal that we ate most every place, was very generous in portion size -- came to a grand total of CNY 27. That's about 4 US dollars.)
Before we left the restaurant Dave asked to photograph the cook and the hands that made this memorable repast. He was confused at first, then obviously flattered that Dave had lovingly photographed every single dish.
'Your food was beautiful, delicious!' I tried to explain. He smiled, just a little. Then, as we were walking halfway up the street, he shouted 'Xia ci zai lai!' Come again!