dinner I ate hotpot again – but this time, at a popular chain (I think
it's been called fast food, but it's not really "fast") called "Xiabu
Xiabu" (tones unknown). This place is so popular that there is often
a waiting line to get seats. There is a long counter lined with
individual pots (hotpot usually has communal pot) that snakes its way
through the restaurant, separating the waiters from the patrons whilst
maximizing the number of seats. The restaurant is very thorough and
developed regarding its method – once you get there, you choose a soup
base, a dipping sauce (to cool off the food once you take it out of
the boiling broth; unfortunately, Xiabu Xiabu does not provide other
plates, so you are forced to put your food into the dipping sauce
after taking it out) to which you can add garlic, onions, and/or
coriander, and then you choose raw food, including several prepackaged
sets. Things overall went smoothly; I was helped a bit by the people
sitting next to me when I encountered characters I was not familiar
with and foods I saw but didn't know how to name (of which there were
many; for example, I don't know the names of many types of vegetables,
and I can only differentiate two types of noodles, though many more
exist). Finding myself still hungry afterwards, I bought a yogurt
drink from a street stall refrigerator. Though literally "sour milk",
this was anything but sour – it was loaded with sugar. It resembled
lassi, though a bit thinner, sugarier, and the taste was somewhat off,
like it was made with sugar substitute or sugar alcohol. I also tried
a strange dessert I had never encountered before from another stall –
it was some sort of clear viscous fluid (I think potato or some other
starch) mixed with sugar, nuts, sesame and dried fruit. Not bad, but
not amazing either – I asked that the vendor only put a little sugar
in, which leads me to believe that most of the taste comes from the
sugar (the dried berries were good, though not very prevalent in the
mix).
Today for lunch I went to a Yunnan restaurant. Yunnan's most famous
food is "across the bridge noodles," so named due to a story where a
woman had to make a long journey to bring her husband food each day,
including crossing a bridge. The dish is a noodle soup; because the
top is covered by a layer of oil, the soup would be insulated and thus
stay warm during the long trip. The cooking method is also
interesting. All the ingredients are brought to the table, then the
broth is brought, very hot; the ingredients (thinly sliced) are dumped
into the soup, where they are quickly cooked (including meats). That
said, the taste is pretty much exactly like chicken noodle soup. I
also had one of the better desserts I've had in China here – a "soup"
of partly-solidified gelatin with caramel on the bottom and sesame
seeds on top, which is then mixed.
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