Food!

I think this oily treat was potato and chicken.
I washed it down with a Tsingtao and some pork buns.
Hello cholesterol!!! Somewhere between Pingyao and Beijing

A yummy result of a miscommunication!
I tried to get something to eat in a Beijing fast food store, they were only
doing brekkie which was warm soy milk and deep-fried bread, I asked for noodles or dumplings.
There were some awkward hand gestures conversations and I ended up with both. Happy days!

Mmmmm...a half eaten Dong Po pork and some garlic bok choy. Dong Po pork is a Hangzhou specialty and is basically pork belly cooked for many hours in a wine based stock. It is served as a big chunk in some dark sauce and consists mainly of tender, tender pork sandwiched between big juicy stripes of fat. the meat is so tender you can pull it apart with your chopsticks. It's obscene, but delish!! During the process of ordering this meal and eating it I had almost everyone in the restaurant watching me, at one point there were 6 people standing over the table staring.
It was quiet difficult to maintain my chopstick agility.

Another Hangzhou speciality, eel and shrimp noodles.
Very very tasty, in fact one of my favourite meals,
although it must be said that the eel
looked a little like poo floating in the bowl.
I'd also witnessed someone gut one the day before,
and it was hard to surpress the memory while I ate.

This awesome menu had to be included because of the fantastic Chinglish employed, Pingyao.

Walnut dumplings (right) and pumpkin dumplings (left), Xian

'Little Hen' chicken dumplings, Xian

Not sure about the scrambled eggs and tomato,
but the muscle soup was good, Xitang

Glutenous rice treats, Xian

Freshly made steamed dumplings, Xitang.
I watched the guy make these and then I ate them. YUM!

Fried potato and green onion. Apparently it's a specialty of Hangzhou.

Beef, beens and lotus...I think, Hangzhou

Pretty standard noodles from Megabite, a big foodhall
where you buy a pre-pay card to pay for your meals, Shanghai

Hand-pulled noodles with beef and coriander, Shanghai. Yum yum!!!

Dumpling banquet, Xian.
One of the perks of group travel is you get to try a bigger variety of food
...but then of course you have to share it with more people.

These are little 'not-meat' balls wrapped in seaweed with fungi.
Not bad, but the fishy flavour got boring quickly.
Lunch at a Vegetarian restaurant in Beijing.

Stir in some chilli flakes and vinegar and you have a
tasty dumpling breakfast, Beijing

My last dinner in China. I planned to go somewhere fancy but I was really tired and
ended up at restaurant a few blocks from my hostel near the Ghost Street.
Pork and chilli stir-fry, greens (I think) and some kind of fish pancake.
Oh, and the obligatory Tsing Tao.

Mmm...pork steamed buns!!! My brekkie most days in Beijing

This was my go to guy for green onion pancakes every morning in Shanghai.
In this photo he's making one of big flat ones that they crack an egg over.
They're tasty, but I prefer the small, fatter ones which are smothered in green onion, garlic, oil
and chilli (you gotta ask for the chilli).
My favourite brekkie in China, but sadly I couldn't find them outside Shanghai.

'Whisper of Ox-tail' with green chilli and garlic broccoli, Beijing

Sauteed beef and veggies with noodles at Crescent Moon a Uighur Muslim restaurant in Beijing.
I spent a good 3 hours trying to find this place amongst the dark laneways of the hutongs.
Eventually I had to give up, but I managed to find it the next day on my bike.
This very simple meal was absolutely delicious!!

Um, I think this is an eggplant dish. Usually the eggplant is really good, but this one was soaked in MSG
so I got that weird powdery texture in my mouth afterward. Near the Pearl Market, Beijing

Back at Crescent Moon, this time with some people from the Intrepid tour.
The lamb stew was amazingly good!!