I am not a hard core foodie but always like to taste different types of food. When I was about to visit China for a week, the first suggestion given to me was ‘Oh! Carry enough food with you otherwise it will be a fasting week for you!’ Alarmed with this, Mom stuffed-in all the possible ready to eat food packs in my bag that included bakarvadi, gul-poli, dry-fruits etc; adding at least 2 kg in my baggage!
I was a gourmet from my flight itself! American breakfast, Malaysian lunch.. and I was happy with both of them! I started getting into the habit of Chinese green tea from my flight itself.
I was in Guangzhou for 7 days and thanks to the client that we were placed in a very nice business hotel in central Guangzhou. There used to be a grand buffet breakfast every morning. Being a business hotel, all types of cuisines used to be on counter including Cantonese. I took the opportunity to taste local Cantonese food every morning that included rice noodles, bean curd, fried noodles, baked beans in tomato sauce, smashed bean buns, sweet fried dim sum, chicken teriyaki, etc and of course the green tea! I liked all of them.
For dinner we used to experiment as per available time. Chinese people are hard core non-vegetarians; to the extent that we also heard that there are no stray dogs on streets because they are kidnapped for food! We noticed very few pet dogs as well. In our country the dog protects the patron, may be there the patron protects the dog and do not wish to take the responsibility! Anyways I did not come across dishes with ingredients like dog, cockroaches during my stay. The only alarming food item that I saw on counter was fried beef tongue, which one can actually see that it is a sliced whole tongue and I did not dare to include it in my plate. Thankfully the option of chicken and sea food was always there and I didn’t miss any chance to taste it in real Chinese flavor.
I dined at a local food joint on the first evening itself. It was fun to taste black baked beans in tea and chicken with rice. My only problem used to be the huge quantity, these Chinese places used to offer. It seems local people there have very good appetite.
I also took the opportunity to taste Chinese KFC and MacD food. The efficiency of staff at these counters is amazing..fastest in the world I guess and most of them are girls and women. In general we found that things are very fast in china.
Chinese pickles are also very famous and I made sure that I include it in my lunch plate. I enjoyed them.
We also dined in the Chinese restaurant in our hotel. The picks were random from the menu card- sea food fried rice, mushroom soup, fried shrimps, fried noodles, green salad, chicken wings, etc and to our surprise we all liked them all! I should mention that my attempt to use chop-sticks was quite successful here!
We also had lunch once in an Indian food restaurant started by a Nepali. It was alright.
I must mention I did not miss ghar-ka khana or Indian food over this entire week. Even in the return flight I preferred tasting Malaysian fish lunch and only for the last dinner in flight I opted for Indian vegetarian to get back my gastronomy in regular Indian mode.
All the ready to eat food parcels have come back in-tact!
I brought home some sachets of Chinese pickles, but to my surprise I am not enjoying them as much as I used to enjoy them there. It’s not about what type of food I like, I guess it’s about having the regional food when we are in different place. Local food is developed with centuries of experiments and expertise. Therefore it is always the best food to have which is suitable for anyone in those particular climatic, geographical, social conditions. When we have local food, very easily we feel connected to our surroundings. We feel as if we are also one of them. According to me food is firsthand experience and explanation of nature and habits of the local people. I had similar experience when I visited Italy. For 15 days I was enjoying the local Italian food and thoroughly enjoyed and loved it.
Local food is flavor of the place. This equally implies that Italian pizza tastes best only when you are having it in Italy. Chinese pickles taste best only when you are having them in China. It’s my first hand experience that when I tried having the same pickle in here, it reminded me of the flavor of the place from where I brought it and it was feeling completely out of place to have it in my plate besides my dal-chaval at my own sweet home.
It’s my suggestion to all of you to taste and enjoy local food when you visit different places. The experience is magical! It makes your visit to the place complete.
I was a gourmet from my flight itself! American breakfast, Malaysian lunch.. and I was happy with both of them! I started getting into the habit of Chinese green tea from my flight itself.
I was in Guangzhou for 7 days and thanks to the client that we were placed in a very nice business hotel in central Guangzhou. There used to be a grand buffet breakfast every morning. Being a business hotel, all types of cuisines used to be on counter including Cantonese. I took the opportunity to taste local Cantonese food every morning that included rice noodles, bean curd, fried noodles, baked beans in tomato sauce, smashed bean buns, sweet fried dim sum, chicken teriyaki, etc and of course the green tea! I liked all of them.
For dinner we used to experiment as per available time. Chinese people are hard core non-vegetarians; to the extent that we also heard that there are no stray dogs on streets because they are kidnapped for food! We noticed very few pet dogs as well. In our country the dog protects the patron, may be there the patron protects the dog and do not wish to take the responsibility! Anyways I did not come across dishes with ingredients like dog, cockroaches during my stay. The only alarming food item that I saw on counter was fried beef tongue, which one can actually see that it is a sliced whole tongue and I did not dare to include it in my plate. Thankfully the option of chicken and sea food was always there and I didn’t miss any chance to taste it in real Chinese flavor.
I dined at a local food joint on the first evening itself. It was fun to taste black baked beans in tea and chicken with rice. My only problem used to be the huge quantity, these Chinese places used to offer. It seems local people there have very good appetite.
I also took the opportunity to taste Chinese KFC and MacD food. The efficiency of staff at these counters is amazing..fastest in the world I guess and most of them are girls and women. In general we found that things are very fast in china.
Chinese pickles are also very famous and I made sure that I include it in my lunch plate. I enjoyed them.
We also dined in the Chinese restaurant in our hotel. The picks were random from the menu card- sea food fried rice, mushroom soup, fried shrimps, fried noodles, green salad, chicken wings, etc and to our surprise we all liked them all! I should mention that my attempt to use chop-sticks was quite successful here!
We also had lunch once in an Indian food restaurant started by a Nepali. It was alright.
I must mention I did not miss ghar-ka khana or Indian food over this entire week. Even in the return flight I preferred tasting Malaysian fish lunch and only for the last dinner in flight I opted for Indian vegetarian to get back my gastronomy in regular Indian mode.
All the ready to eat food parcels have come back in-tact!
I brought home some sachets of Chinese pickles, but to my surprise I am not enjoying them as much as I used to enjoy them there. It’s not about what type of food I like, I guess it’s about having the regional food when we are in different place. Local food is developed with centuries of experiments and expertise. Therefore it is always the best food to have which is suitable for anyone in those particular climatic, geographical, social conditions. When we have local food, very easily we feel connected to our surroundings. We feel as if we are also one of them. According to me food is firsthand experience and explanation of nature and habits of the local people. I had similar experience when I visited Italy. For 15 days I was enjoying the local Italian food and thoroughly enjoyed and loved it.
Local food is flavor of the place. This equally implies that Italian pizza tastes best only when you are having it in Italy. Chinese pickles taste best only when you are having them in China. It’s my first hand experience that when I tried having the same pickle in here, it reminded me of the flavor of the place from where I brought it and it was feeling completely out of place to have it in my plate besides my dal-chaval at my own sweet home.
It’s my suggestion to all of you to taste and enjoy local food when you visit different places. The experience is magical! It makes your visit to the place complete.
