food
Want-want!
Want-want!, originally uploaded by Helen K.
Fast junk food of choice while catching over night train in China is Want-want! The snack that provides you with your MSG and sugar hit all in a rice cracker! Yummo!
Dinner?
This was the fantastic fish dinner we had from the place next door to accomodation.
We spoke no Chinese, (left the book at the hutong) and they spoke no english. There were three types of fish on the menu…. all looked the same but with different vegetables/spices. We sat outside, and there was a cool breeze, ah….
It was a great find!
Before it was carved
Here is a poor duck before it was carved up.
Well you may know Helen and I have been in search of Adelaide’s best Peking Duck and so far it is probably Citizen in King William Street. We have had one duck in Beijing and so far it is the best we’ve had in China. Indeed it was very good! Quite different that in Adelaide.
Firstly, we had the whole duck carved up, no second dish like duck noodle or rice. Secondly, the taste was let’s say more adult or less Australian. I think Australian ducks are influenced by the tradition of chinese food being quite sweet. Peking Duck and the sauce in Adelaide are also quite sweet. Not so here.
Also, the food wasn’t sullied with the staple of rice!! Special occasions deserve special food. Rice is an every day food.
If you want to see more photos of our duck and the restaurant then visit Helen’s flickr pages. Some of her new photos are shown to the right of this post, and a quick scan can be had by clicking on the photo page at the top.
Qinmen Daije
Like a focused machine Helen and I were in Beijing and we knew we had to eat Beijing (aka Peking) Duck! Helen used a simple search criteria on Google “Best Beijing Duck”. It came and back and said you MUST go to Liqun Roast Duck Restaurant in the back streets of an old Beijing Hutong.
That doesn’t too hard, but these streets are small and I can never seem to find two maps that agree on street names or locations. It doesn’t matter anyway because streets are disappearing and appearing all a time. Even our Nokia GPS had as walking in a middle of a void, even though it looked like a street.
This photo is of an area that looked very “old china” at first appearances to our naive eyes. On closer look it was clear that all the buildings were new and indeed me any were still in the process of being fitted out. This is clearly a mega shopping development. At least it wasn’t another boring mall.. Only problem is that all of little streets that should have connected to the hutongs were gone! The hutongs are certainly an endangered species.
We still made it thought by guess work and good look. Have a look at the next post to see the duck.
Duck dinner in Seoul….
After an hour or more of wandering around the Namdaemum Market after the DMZ tour, we headed off to Tobang duck restaurant. This was reccomended by the Seoul City Guide.
Locating the place was easy, and ordering was easy (pointing works well), however we really could of done with some assistance in eating everything that was brought to the table. The place had a great feel, majority of tables had people sitting on the floor in the traditional style, but I think the head waitress took pity on us and gave us a normal table.
As you wll see by the picture, we ate what was called Sulfer duck shabu shabu shabu. Sorry I don’t know what the translation was… From the Korean, you are going to have to look that up.
Before the duck is brought to the table the gas is turned on and a bowl of water is boiled and greens are cooked in the water, then placed on a drain train. The duck is then brought out and is sat between the two. Of course as we are in Korea we are presented with kimchi (pickled cabbage), pickled garlic, onion, thin shaved slices of raddish, and a couple of other things we can’t work out.
Amazingly enough we managed to eat all the duck… But we really could of used your help H & T! The duck tasted very different from pekking duck – but it had a great taste that you would of loved.
Best mocha on holiday yet!
I didn’t think it was possible… but yes we found a mocha that was quite good in Japan.
While waiting for the ferry back to Hiroshima we had 25 minutes to use so we wandered over to a coffee and food place not far from the ferry terminal on Miyajima island.
It is very different from my top three favourite mocha locations in Adelaide. The coffee was strong enough, and had some chocolate in it – but it also contained a dlop of sweaten chocolate cream in the middle.
Deer
Okonmyaki
These were amazing. We tried to find find the shop that B & T recommended near Hep 5, but we wandered around for 30 minutes or so couldn`t find it – sorry!
That evening after we watched the soccer match, we went to a restaurant near our hotel that made okanmyaki. It had to be good as there was a queue out the front… we waited for about 30 minutes and it was worth the wait.
They are made with eggs and a variety of other ingredients, from meat to seafood, vegetables… and cooked in front of you. They were so good we went back the next day. The camera got steamed up through taking these shots….
Geisha having afternoon tea
While in Kyoto on the first day of wandering off the Higashiyma, we ventured into the Gion district, which is famous for Geisha wandering the streets.
We saw a poster advertising the fan dance of the Geisha and didn`t believe that it would be real Geisha. We bought tickets, for the show and the afternoon tea with the Geisha for the next day.
We discovered the next day on an organised walk, that the show is done each year, and this year is the 146th. The show is only held for one month during cherry blossom season.
If you pay for a seat and a ticket to the afternoon tea. Firstly you are waiting in in traditional Japanese garden area, then in large groups of 100+, you are ushered into a room where the Geisha is on stage preparing tea and another Geisha is serving the front row. The later rows don’t get the special treatment. Once seated you are served a traditional Japanese cake and tea. Once eaten and drank you are ushered out to wait to be seated for the next performance. There is just enough time for a few photos and you get to keep the plate the cake was served on.
Certainly an experience we hadn`t planned on!
