Great Eats!

I am enjoying my culinary options immensely. Calliope has pressed the frontiers of our eating adventures and Hilda has shared her long-time favorites with us.

At the Hong Kong airport, Hilda found congee with duck eggs. The duck eggs were black on the outside and had a comforting, velvety, mouth-feel, when I bit into them. Shortly after arriving in Xiamen, we were introduced to stuffed buns - cooked vegetables enclosed in a moist, chewy, warm bread.

Quite delicious.

In the early morning, right outside our apartment, street vendors sell warm soy drink. Our first day here, Hilda poured this on her Reese's Pieces cereal, which she brought from home (one must have priorities of the suitcase!) But, we have spent precious little time preparing our own food; we have been exploring the local eateries.

One of the delights of ordering food at restaurants is that we often don't get what we attempt to order. One of the Xiamen University student cafeterias has English translations on the menu. So we tried "pumpkin browns". They were listed directly beneath "french fries", so I was thinking home-fried pumpkin slices. Instead, we were served little deep-fried gelatinous cakes with filling. Taro cakes were much the same. They also prepared "snow bubble" fruit drinks. We thought we'd be getting some form of bubble tea. They turned out to be milk/fruit smoothies. We tasted three varieties - cantaloupe, passion fruit, and dark plum. Mmmmm.

You'll notice that I haven't mentioned any hardships associated with being a vegetarian here in China. That's because it's easy! You can always add tofu to your soup or your noodles. And if I get tired of tofu, they have a tasty egg and tomato dish that I see on most menus. Actually I hear about it or see it at another table, since I don't know the characters for it.

The winner for the most-unique-concept-dish category is skewered, barbequed scallions. They were coated with oil as they cooked and brushed with spices.

There were many promising candidates for the I-can't-say-that-I've-ever-eaten-that-before category, but I'll give first place to stir-fried, shredded lotus root.

After a quick trip to the supermarket, I see there are even more unique choices available. Calliope bought Pringles potato chips - only they were blueberry flavored! I'll tackle the supermarket and sweets in another entry.