chifan de defang (places to eat)

Before leaving on our trip, my mother sent us several books including The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones. The novel follows an American food writer who visits China as a result of her husband's sudden death and an assignment to cover a rising Chinese-American chef who also happens to be a descendant of a royal chef who cooked in the Forbidden City Palace. It's a fun read and a great introduction to China's culinary history as well as the current crossroads between modern western influences and ancient traditional styles.

Perhaps our first and most important discovery in China is that the food here is almost nothing like the mass-produced American cuisine, which is designed to be very homogenous and somewhat bland in taste in an effort to appeal to the masses. That Chinese food is closer to American fast food in its consistency than anything you're likely to find in China. In contrast, Chinese food is fresh, interesting and extremely varied. While many of the core ingredients are similar to what we might find in a Chinese buffet at home, it's a little like saying French cuisine consists of some good pastries and French bread.

To be sure, there is no shortage of unusual food options to be found in even the most mainstream of Chinese restaurants. Sliced jellyfish, braised duck feet and duck bills, boiled sea cucumbers, pig hearts, steamed chicken intestines and turtle soup garnished with small turtles are not un-common dishes on many restaurant menus.

At the same time, however, there are plenty of less exotic options that are exceptionally good and fun to eat. At Xiao Wang's Home Restaurant in Beijing, we enjoyed a delicious meal of steamed spare ribs with black bean curd and lotus leaves, BBQ lamb with coriander, steamed dumplings with shrimp and leeks, house fried rice with shrimp, wonton chicken soup with bok choy and Tsingtao beer and jasmine tea. Ethan's a big fan of dumplings and loves the fact he can get them anytime of day - even for breakfast.

We also ventured out to a neat Tibetan restaurant called Makye Ame near the embassy area in Beijing. There we sampled a variety of regional yak dishes including yak dumplings, yak steak, a Tibetan style steamed rice made with bits of yak meat, fruit and butter made from yak milk, fresh bread, tea and green barley beer. During dinner a Tibetan band played traditional and modern music and Ethan and I even joined in some traditional line dancing to get the full cultural experience. We highly recommend this place, but call ahead for reservations as its small and popular with locals and tourists alike.

Looking for a lighter dinner one evening, we opted for the Regal Palace next to our hotel and enjoyed an assortment of sautéed vegetables, vegetable fried rice, Beijing noodles and meat dumplings in soup. Even the presentation of something simple like Beijing noodles is worth experiencing. The meal is typically brought to the table in three separate bowls: cooked noodles in one, thinly sliced vegetables in a second and some sort of fragrant meat sauce in a third. The bowls are then mixed together resulting in a perfect blend of meats, vegetables and noodles that is quintessential Chinese cuisine.

And on our last night in Beijing, we sought out the famous Peking duck, a Beijing (Peking) classic, at Da Dong's new location in the business district. This sleek, contemporary restaurant was a sharp contrast to the more traditional places we visited but a good example of the blending of modern and traditional in China. The fire-roasted duck arrives with great presentation and is carved at the table and then served with thin rice pancakes and an assortment of vegetables and sauces. Add a little rice and some fruit (undetermined origin) gelatinous substance with a slimy texture for dessert and you're all set.

Since arriving in Jinan, and adding Fujing to our group, our dining has been a little more restrained. We've eaten in the hotel a few times and tried a local KFC and a Pizza Hut for fun. Pizza Hut turned out to be more like a Denny's as far as menu choices, but the Hawaiian pizza was a nice change after eating mostly local cuisine since we arrived. Fujing loves congee – a simple rice porridge that can be spiced up with meat, eggs, vegetables or pickles. And Chris is a fan of the donkey sandwiches (sorry Judy) that we had the first day at lunch with the group from the orphanage. If you didn't know any better, the thin slices of meat could easily pass as roast beef and are eaten in small bread pocket with thin slices of cucumber, green onion and a soybean paste. I'm guessing donkey meat might be a little hard to find back home though.

Overall, the Chinese meals we've enjoyed have been bright and fresh and blend harmoniously in dishes that compliment one another with varying flavors of spices, herbs and textures. And since the cuisine here in the north is considered to be somewhat blander than in the west (Sichuan) and south (Cantonese), we are looking forward to comparing our dining experiences here with meals in the south when we get to Guangzhou.