Eating in Jilin City, China Part 5

Food

When you first arrive it will seem that there isn't much food around except for huge restaurants and in the wall looking dives. To be honest with you there are ton of different varieties of food to eat there it is more about knowing where to look and being brave enough to try to order and then ingest it.

If you know me, you know I love food. So here is the last  post on Jilin dedicated to food! 

I did find a sushi joint!

Korean meal.

While I was working at the Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology College teaching oral English once a week to about 120 students between 3 classes in one day. Since the college was located about 35-40 minutes our of Jilin City I ate at the cafeteria. Here I learned that there are about 3 different kinds of food and there are many variations within the categories. First I found that western food is pretty much a hit or miss, it is either terrible or tolerable. Unless it is cooked by an actual westerner, even then without the right ingredients this could be next to impossible to get the correct taste. (unless you are in a very westernized city you cannot locate western ingredients) How tasty it is also depends on how much you miss western food. This seems to bode true everywhere in China. Secondly, there is NE Chinese food, which is usually an assortment of fresh veggies with a strong salt or sugar base sauce that will help you eat more rice. There seemed to be a shortage of meat based dishes. Most of the time the meat are very finely chopped up and just tossed into your vegetable dishes. The third option is noodles, now there are plenty of different kinds of noodles (egg, rice usually) in many different shapes and sizes. You can choose whatever you want to put into it like a salad bar, this usually entails some green veggies and an egg. Chinese people really like eggs. This is always served with a vinegar sauce, chili powder and a soy sauce that you just mix in with your noodle soup. All the dishes cost anywhere from 4-15 Yuan.

Eating squid in the sun!

Eating Squid in the rain!

Street vendors: this is where the magic happens, vendor food doesn't always look the most sterile or the most healthy but it sure is the tastiest. You can pick pretty much anything you like from meats on a stick, deep fried tofu, veggies (ie. grilled corn, green onions) nothing from the stands will cost you more than 3 Yuan so that is roughly 0.50 Canadian. I have had my fill of street food when I am running late for class or only have a short break in between. Mind you convenience store food is always interesting since you can't read the packaging and everything you buy is like a mystery prize you never know what you are going to get. I do have to add that the best juices I have ever tasted were from China. I love BBQ meat, especially the squid.

As for local restaurants most of them serve regular Chinese food or dumplings. Dumplings (Jiǎozi 餃子) are very popular here and I personally quite like them. They are easy to order when you learn the words for the kind that you like and they are cheap. About a dollar Canadian will get me about a dozen which is more than enough since they are stuffed with a meat and vegetable mixture again served with vinegar. They are usually steamed. While on the top of steamed foods, steam buns are another one of my favourites you can usually get a one huge one for about 2 Yuan, they vary from cabbage to green onion and pork or chicken. These make awesome easy warm morning breakfasts.  In China they usually eat porridge (congee) a rice boiled soup where they will serve with shredded meats, duck eggs, very little veggies and a long deep fried doughnut to for dipping purposes.

Due to the fact so many Korean people have settled in Jilin there are quite a few Korean restaurants.

Did you know you can BBQ bread.

Our attempt at BBQ

Some Dong Bei Food.

These look like green onion cakes but they are not, inside is actually leeks and pork.

Congee

My experience with food in China is if you can't speak the language  and there is no picture to point at, be prepared for anything.

If you want anything past the hours of midnight you'll have to hunt down one of the holes in the wall for some late night BBQ or hit up McDonalds. There is no such thing as pizza delivery but KFC & McDonalds will deliver between the hours of 5-8pm.

Grocery stores have pretty much anything you would want to a stir fry but I did find at DaFuYuan (a local chain grocer) dog meat and dog heads! Personally there are many street vendors that will sell you meat, fruits and vegetables at a very low price with out the hassle of fighting through over populated grocery stores. After awhile they will even know you are a regular customer of their and give you deals. Gotta love the barter system. The lady that I bought my fruits and vegetables from would tell me how good my Mandarin was, I don't know if this was because she was trying to butter me up so I would purchase more of her produce.

BBQ food from the Chicken Skeleton

The KTV Fruit platter.

Thank you for reading. Where ever I am it sure isn't boring.

Bye bye- Jilin.