Chengdu Rendezvous Part 2

CHENGDU RENDEZVOUS:

Part 2: the food

Sichuan food is world-famous for its c o l o r f u l flavors. And isn't Chengdu the capital of Sichuan? So no surprises... Chengdu offers some of the best food on this planet.

A few notes:

1. Nothing that I tasted was terribly spicy. In fact, I have yet to eat something in China that is more spicy than the spicy rice noodles from LaoBan MiXian in my small town (LaoBan MiXian's mixian will numb your tongue and lips with the force of your dentist's best novocaine!) So I can declare definitively that Sichuan DEFINITELY has plenty of delicious options for people who can't tolerate spicy food.
2. Chengdu has cuisine from all over the world. If you want Western food, well my God they even have Papa Johns pizza. They have Japanese food, Cantonese food, Thai food, so on. You name it; Chengdu has it. I even saw a Tex-Mex restaurant!
3. Better ask a local to help you... you will get so much more out of Chengdu's buffet!
4. I am going to show you pictures of some of the food I ate. I will do a very poor job of labeling things because I have forgotten what most of it is called. Let's just say that I ate everything from noodles to pig's brain. And more dog meat... because it's really quite good when prepared and cooked right... sorry Fido, but you're delicious.

picture 1: Dim Sum = Cantonese food in Chengdu

Picture 2: rice noodles (?)

Picture 3: a special Sichuan noodle whose name I have forgotten but whose flavor I will always remember. These noodles are painted with a special blend of spices to make their flavor a combination of spicy and sweet. First spicy, then sweet... and the mouth is happy.

Picture 4: I forgot the name of every last one of these dishes. Dish A (upper left) and Dish B (upper center) are some kind of dumplings. I must say, Shaanxi dumplings are better than Sichuan dumplings. Dish C (upper right) ranks highly as one of my favorites. Dish D (lower right) is some kind of noodle, so you know I'm going to like it. Dish E (lower center) are some food stuffed in a pancake-like blanket. Not bad. And I don't even recognize Dish F. Looks like cucumbers but that cannot be right.

Picture 5: You don't even have to taste this to know it's going to be delicious!

Picture 6: Home-cooked meal with the entire extended family... more dishes added after this picture until the table had no room to put a single elbow. home-cooked meal = haochi jile! or as we say in Chengdu "basi! anyi!" or as we say in Shaanxi "liao za lie!" It seems every regional dialect in China is required to have its own unique way to say "Damn this food is good!"

Picture 7: Chengdu is famous for its teahouses. Here is a cup of simple tea at an elaborate teahouse where we are enjoying Sichuan Opera. Sip the night away!

Picture 8: A special kind of tea at another tea place... for the old foreigner the tea is a tad vexing, however, because some of the tea leaves float at the top like hopelessly dead fish. So when you get a mouthful a tea, you get a mouth fuller of tea leaves...yyyyuck... Naturally, there is a technique for drinking past the tea leaves, but I couldn't figure it out.

Picture 9: In my mind, Chengdu is MOST famous for its hotpot. Here is the table for Chengdu hotpot before all the magic begins.

Picture 10: And here is the table at a different hotpot restaurant featuring Chongqing hotpot. In this picture, the magic has begun. A thousand dishes of various items, oils, spices, sauces, a bubbling bath, and anxious chopstocks! I plan to write a special blog about hotpot in the future, so I'll hold off on writing the book about it here. Let it be concluded for now that the hotpot was BaSi... AnYi... Liao Za Lie... the bomb!