07.24.08
Posted in Culture Clash, Food and Drink, Travel Log (Asia) at 2:56 pm by Benjamin Ross
“So tell me, do they really eat dog in China?”
I probably get asked this question at least once a week when I am back in the United States. To shed some light on this inquiry, here’s a short anecdote from my recent trip to the town of Yanji (延吉) in Northeastern China’s Jilin province. Yanji is located just 15 miles away from the North Korean border, and home to much of China’s ethnic Korean population. In addition to being known for its Korean-infused “cold noodles,” (冷面 leng3 mian4) Yanji is also the renowned dog eating capital of China. So much so that they even have a street called Dog Meat Street (狗肉街 gou3 rou4 jie1), where restaurants specialize in serving dog meat in various incarnations, such as dog soup, dog hot pot, or simply chopped up, stir-fried dog with veggies.
Being that I had come all the way from Beijing, and was now in arguably the most famous dog eating spot in the world, I had to give it a try. Along with two Chinese backpackers I had met along the way we found quaint, little, restaurant on Dog Meat Street which specialized in serving dog hot pot (狗肉火锅 gou3 rou4 huo3 guo1) and decided to give it a whirl.
A hot pot is a vat of boiling water, which usually sits in a circular hole in a table, constructed specifically for its purpose. A spicy base, and sometimes pork bones, are boiled in the water to give it flavor. Various meats, vegetables, and other miscellaneous foodstuffs are individually ordered from the menu and then dipped in the hot pot where they are cooked while soaking up the spicy flavor.
For our hot pot, we ordered lean strips of dog meat, along with some cabbage leaves and lettuce. As is customary of Dongbei (Northeastern Chinese) food, several cold dishes were served as appetizers, including fresh seaweed, pickled garlic, and kimchi. Once the meat had been sufficiently cooked, I dipped my chopsticks into the pot to pull out a thin slice of meat. (I had pictures of this, but unfortunately they were on my camera which was stolen in Dalian). It was brown in color, coarse in texture, and from my view looked indistinguishable from beef. One of my accomplices recommend I dip it in some hot sauce which had been brought to our table by the waitress. After dabbing the morsel into the sauce, I popped it in my mouth. The meat was lean and coarse, but did not have a flavor as distinct as pork or beef. The closest comparison I could come to was rabbit. It certainly didn’t taste like chicken. We finished the meal, drank a few Tsingtao’s, and retired for the evening.
So as you’ve probably already ascertained, the answer to the original question of whether or not dog is eaten in China is an overwhelming “Yes.” There is no denying that our furry canine friends do often make their way on to the dinner table in the Middle Kingdom. However, there is still quite a bit of misunderstanding on the subject.
“What kinds of dogs do they eat?”
In and around Yanji, as well as other areas in China where canine consumption is practiced, the dogs which are eaten are not the same ones which live side by side with their human masters. Most are a “breed” of dog commonly referred to in China as 土狗 (tu3 gou3), which means “earth” or “wild” dog. These dogs have been mixed between so many breeds, that even referring to them as a “breed” would be a misnomer. They are not cute. They do not give affection. and they will not sit, heel, or roll over. Rather, they are raised on farms, and though domesticated, they are domesticated as farm animals, not pets. While it is not completely unheard of for pet dogs to mysteriously disappear in the Middle Kingdom, the vast majority of dog meat comes from these special dog farms, not the neighbor’s back yard.
“If one is to go to China and not interested in eating dog meat, how can they be certain this won’t happen by accident or trickery? Is it safe to eat food on the street? How does one know that the ‘pork’ skewers are actually pork and not dog or rat or snake or some other kind of weird animal?”
Dog meat in China (like rat and snake) is a delicacy, and therefore considerably more expensive than beef, chicken, or pork. The main reason that most human populations eat the animals they do centers around economics. When human labor, feed, and space requirements are all factored in, it is far more economical to raise cattle or pigs for human consumption than it would be to raise dogs; You simply get more meat for your buck. Hence the lower prices for pork and beef, and the higher price for dog meat. In all likelihood, it would be much more plausible for an unsuspecting tourist to order dog and be served pork, than it would be the other way around.
“So, how common exactly is dog eating in the Middle Kingdom?”
Although dog consumption does exist in China, is far less common than the consumption of more “mainstream” meats such as pork, beef, and chicken. Much of this centers on the price, as mentioned above. Sure, many Americans would love to eat lobster three times a week, but because of its price, it is usually reserved for special occasions. Dog meat in China is the same. While not prohibitively expensive, it surely is not economical to make a habit out of eating it. Additionally, places like Yanji are by no means the norm when it comes to meat selection. In many areas of China, dog meat is rarely, if ever, eaten at all. Furthermore, as dog ownership has increased in China, so to has the amount of Chinese people who refuse to eat dog, mainly on the same grounds as Westerners—they’re our cute, loyal, furry pets, not our banquet centerpiece.
For those willing to try dog meat, you won’t have to go all the way to Yanji to have a taste. In nearly every major Chinese city can be found a restaurant where it is served. Just look for the characters 狗肉 written on a restaurant sign.* And for those who are not too keen on eating man’s best friend, there is no need to worry. Just go ahead and order your kung pao chicken. I can assure you, it will be kung pao chicken.
*Since dog eating is not especially common in most parts of the country, it is often specifically advertised as a restaurant’s specialty.
Permalink
07.15.08
Posted in Food and Drink, Travel Log (Asia) at 6:34 pm by Benjamin Ross
It’s been two and a half days in Harbin, and I have decided rather than putting several hours of travel time into a well-formatted and substantial write up (not to mention pics) I’m going to instead continue giving these small incremental updates and observations. Then when I get back to Beijing, write more in-depth posts. That being said, in one hour I leave for Yanxi in Jilin province. Yanxi is a Korean automomous prefecture, and sets just across from the border of North Korea. I’d imagine this will be as close as my American passport will ever allow me to get to North Korea. Yanxi is also only several kilometers from Russia, so I’m interested to see the conflex of Russian, Korean, and Chinese culture.
As for Harbin…I spent the morning today at the Museum of Japanese Biological Warfare against the Chinese. (The full Chinese name escapes me at the moment, but I believe it was something like 日侵华第779队部遗址). It is housed at the site of an old military base where the Japanese did human experimentation and tested germ warfare for possible future use. The exhibits were quite disturbing, and were erily similar to what the Nazis were doing at Dacau. Fortunately, the Japanese never got to use it on any mass scale because some random country (they weren’t mentioned at all in any of the exhibits) defeated their army and expelled them out of China.
This afternoon I visited the Huang Shan Cemetery, located on the outskirts of Harbin. The cemetery is massive and in the center there was an old section where Harbin’s Jews were buried. It was the most massive and picturesque cemetery I have ever seen in China. The Jewish gravestones were mostly from the twenties, thirties, and fourties, and numbered in the hundreds. The inscriptions on the headstones were written in both Hebrew and Russian. There was also an Eastern Orthodox section for Harbin’s former Russian population.
In another random note, I am finding that 东北菜 (cuisine from Northeast China) is rapidly becoming one of my favorite Chinese cuisines. Here are some of the highlights so far.
-地三鲜 (di4 san1 xian1). I must have had this dish a hundred times before, but none can compare to what I had last night in a hole-in-the wall Harbin restaurant for 4 RMB. The lightly fried potatoes, eggplant, and green pepper were beyond heavenly. Those folks down south have no idea.
-凉菜 (liang3 cai4) Dongbei food is known for its emphasis on cold vegetable dishes. Virtually every restaurant I have been to has a menu stocked with cold cabbage, potato slices, wood ear mushroom, seaweed, and a whole slew of other cold delights.
-红肠 (hong2 chang2) In a comment to a previous post, I mentioned that Harbin has the best sausage I have ever tasted in China. And I also incorrectly reported that it is called 肉联. The proper name is 红肠, which loosely translated means “red intestine.” I have been eating them compulsively.
More to come soon. I’m off to Jilin in a few minutes.
Permalink
07.03.08
Posted in Food and Drink, Travel Log (Asia) at 1:12 am by Benjamin Ross
No sooner do I write an article about how there is nothing “to see” in Shijiazhuang than do I walk right out of the smoky net bar to see something I have never before seen in Mainland China—a bona fide all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.
Growing up in the heart of America, my first exposure to Chinese cuisine (and Chinese culture too now that I think about it) was at the Lucky Dragon Chinese Buffet. Located in a strip center in Overland Park, Kansas, Lucky’s had all the makings of the prototypical Chinese buffet restaurant—General Tso’s chicken, fortune cookies, placemats with the Chinese signs of the zodiac on them. And best of all, for $5.95 we could stuff our faces with as much Oriental delight as we desired. It was so perfect, so foreign, and yet so utterly un-Chinese.
And like General Tso’s famous chicken, and like those desert cookies with fortunes and lucky numbers, and like the placemats with the animals, the all-you-can-eat buffet is virtually non-existent in China. China does have many restaurants with cafeteria-style dining 中国快餐 (zhong1 guo2 kuai4 can1), where diners choose from pre-made dishes, an art all of its own and probably worthy of its own post. However, these restaurants are never all-you-can eat. Instead, they charge 1 or 2 RMB per item.
So it came to be, just 30 feet from the Internet bar I spied my first ever all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, in China. The price of 26 RMB was a little steep, but I couldn’t resist. I paid my money, was handed my silver trey, and dug in.
The buffet consisted of a long table, with over 20 hot dishes, as well as a similar number of cold ones. On another table were fruit, soda, and even a big glass jug of baijiu* with a stretched out dead lizard inside. Wanting to take full advantage of the 26 kuai I had thrown down, I packed my plate with mapo tofu, stir fried potatoes and pork, squid cooked with cumin, lion heads (Chinese meat balls), spicy napa, seaweed, a fried onion cake, a mound of rice, 2 vegetable dumplings, and a baozi. Now as you might have expected, the food itself was not of the highest quality, it was rather lousy. In fact, come to think of it this was probably the worst 26 kuai meal I have ever eaten. Most of the dishes were similar in quality to mid-grade 快餐, on which I can usually fill up for just around 5 RMB. The only redeeming item was the cumin squid which was rather tasty and unique.
Thus my first stop at the Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet will likely be my last as well. Here are a few pictures from the experience, the most interesting of which is probably the lizard in the baijiu. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s probably a good thing there aren’t too many Chinese buffets in the Middle Kingdom, and it’s probably also another reason the Chinese aren’t nearly as obese as us proud Americans. I can however assure you that I will most likely not be eating any more Chinese buffet until I return to Chicago.
*Chinese rice wine; usually around 50% alcohol
 |
| Looks familiar, right? |
 |
| The first table had primarily hot dishes and soups. |
 |
| The second table had all kinds of cold dishes, mainly veggies and tofu. |
 |
| At the end of the second table were an assortment of 主食 (staple foods) including rice, dumplings, cakes, and mantou. |
 |
| The dessert table consisted mainly of fruit. Sorry, no college dormitory style ice cream or chocolate pudding. |
 |
| Each item was served on chaffing dishes, just like back home. |
 |
| Here’s my first tray full of Chinese buffet goodness; Clockwise from the top-left, that’s the fried onion cake, dumplings, rice, baozi, stir-fried potatoes and pork, spicy napa, seaweed, squid cooked with cumin, lion heads, and the mapo tofu. |
 |
| A Chinese buffet just wouldn’t be a Chinese buffet without a jug of baijiu with a dead lizard in it right?….right?….anybody? |
Permalink
06.19.08
Posted in Business 'n Economics, Food and Drink at 5:57 pm by Benjamin Ross
Culinary globalization is no longer shocking in the Middle Kingdom, as foreign fast food and restaurant chains are now ubiquitous in all major cities. In fact, in the shopping center near my apartment in Beijing alone, there is a McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Dairy Queen, Yoshinoya (Japanese fast food chain), and even a Sizzler Steak House. But what has been surprising me now that I am back in China, is to see that the globalization of food has even trickled down to street vendors who typically only sling Chinese goodies. Consider this Tianjin street vendor selling “Japanese style sushi.”
Despite its proximity to Japan, sushi has historically been a relatively tough sell to the Chinese, who have a general aversion to eating anything raw, be it fish or vegetables.
In case you’re wondering, I wasn’t brave enough to try any.
Permalink
06.09.08
Posted in Down in Chinatown, Food and Drink at 11:50 am by Benjamin Ross
It’s 10:30 AM. You’re in Chinatown (or Guangzhou for that matter). It’s too late for breakfast, but you’re not quite hungry enough for lunch. You want a little Chinese snack, but don’t want to throw down the cash for a full meal. Enter chang fen (肠粉). I still have no idea how I managed to live in China for 3.5 years, only to finally discover this little snack in Chinatown here in Chicago.
 |
| Chang fen, served with scallions and doused in homemade soy sauce |
Literally, chang fen means “intestine powder,” with the “powder” in this case referring to granulated rice. The most common English translation is “funn roll.” The ‘fun’ comes from the Cantonese pronunciation of 饭, with the extra ‘n’ to alleviate the potential hilarity of having an item called “fun roll” on the menu.*
The concept of chang fen is similar to that of old-style sausages, only instead of pig intestines, the encasing is made out of rice. The inside can contain a multitude of goodies, however the most common are beef (牛肠niu2 chang2) and shrimp 虾肠 (xia1 chang2).
Chang fen originate from Guangdong, and are frequently found rolling through restaurant dining rooms on dim sum carts. They are often served with a dash of scallions and/or soy sauce on the side.
If you are in Chicago, tasty chang fen are served at the Sunlight Café (227 W. Cermak, in Chinatown), for $1.60. This includes 6 chang fen, and can practically constitute an entire meal, if you aren’t exceedingly hungry. They also have excellent homemade soy sauce. The employees behind the counter don’t speak much English, so if you don’t speak any Mandarin or Cantonese, expect to do a lot of pointing and hand motions. When you go, be sure to tell them that the six-foot Chinese-speaking white guy from Kansas sent you.
By the way, if anybody knows any good places in Beijing to get chang fen, let me know. I’ll be staying near 北三环.
Permalink
02.21.08
Posted in Festivals and Celebrations, Food and Drink, Local Customs, Personal Anecdotes at 7:17 pm by Benjamin Ross
In 2007 we saw the coming of the year of the pig, the main source of protein for China’s mass population. In 2006 it was the year of the dog, and dog ownership in China skyrocketed like never before. 2005 brought us the year of the “cock,” and I don’t even want to go there. But what do we get from the latest beast, the rat, which the Chinese Spring Festival has dragged through the gate? What can be done with a small rodent which for most of human history has been regarded as nothing more than a pest?…The answer is the same as what you do with most animals in the Middle Kingdom…you eat ‘em!
Yes, you heard me correctly. I said you eat the rats. Although most of the world (as well as most of China) would never even consider eating these small furry rodents, the practice does go on in some areas. One of which is Western Fujian in the cities of Sanming and Longyan.
 |
| When bought in a store, rat jerky usually comes packaged like this bag of pig gall-bladder jerky (another one of the “8 big jerkys.”) |
To be fair, I should add that the word for “rat” in Chinese 老鼠 (lao3 shu3) in common speech is an umbrella term which includes both rats and mice. The “rats” most commonly used for human consumption in Fujian are what we would refer to as “field mice” rather than the sewer rats which are so common in most Chinese urban centers.
My ex-girlfriend was from Sanming and had told me that one of here favorite childhood memories was “eating rats.” Mice would be trapped in fields, killed, dried, and then made into “rat jerky” (老鼠干) which is considered one of the “8 big jerkys” (八大干) of Western Fujian. I had remained incredulous, so when we took a trip back to Sanming last spring, she promised me she would inquire if rat jerky was still around.
On our first day back we asked my ex’s grandma if there was some place in town where we could buy rat jerky. She told us that these days it is becoming less and less safe to eat the stuff. Because most of the field mice have been killed in recent years, scrupulous farmers have begun making jerky out of sewer rats, which are prone to disease. However, it turned out we were in luck, because earlier in the week, she told us, she had gone to a market in a neighboring town and picked up some fresh (non-jerkified) rat.
 |
| The mouse which came out of my ex-girlfriend’s grandmother’s refridgerator |
Cultural sensitivities aside, I’m not sure I was prepared for what I was about to see, as the old woman pulled a completely intact frozen mouse out of the freezer. It was about 3 inches long, and placed on the table, it looked just like one of those mice I used to chase out of my apartment when I was in college.
That night for dinner, the mouse was chopped up into morsels, and cooked into a dish with hot peppers and garlic, and it tasted surprisingly wholesome…like beef, but with much smaller bones. Had I not known what it was I would have had no idea I was eating a rodent. Who woulda thunk? 祝你鼠年快乐Happy Rat Year!
Addendum: At the tail end of my trip to Sanming I was able to find several stores which sold rat jerky, and later on a Western Fujian specialty shop in Fuzhou which sold it as well. It comes in several flavors, most of them spicy, and is usually priced at least twice as expensive as the equivalent weight in beef jerky.
Permalink
10.23.07
Posted in Food and Drink, Japan, Travel Log (Asia) at 12:43 pm by Benjamin Ross
I just wanted to take a minute to apologize to all the people who follow this blog for the lack, or should I say extreme slowness, of content of late. Things have been a little hectic as I begin the next phase of my life, which will entail moving to Chicago to look for a full time job, and the blog has found itself a little further down on the priority latter. Nonetheless I hope to pick up the pace in the next few weeks. I still have a post or two about my recent (well, not so recent anymore) trip to Japan, and then it’s back to content centered primarily on China. Without further adiu, here’s the final segment of “A $5 Culinary Trip Through Tokyo” continued from part 2.
On my final day in Japan, I actually only had half a day, since my flight departed Narita Airport at 4 pm. The trip from my youth hostel to the airport required me to switch trains at Nippori (an outer district of Tokyo) on the way to Narita. One of the unfortunate limitations of my trip to Japan was that I only had enough time to explore Tokyo, and by Tokyo I mean central Tokyo. The difference between central city and Narita was apparent from the moment I stepped off the train. Unlike the high-tech underground malls of Shinjuku and Shibuya which seemingly go on forever, Nippori station reminded me of a Chicago L-train stop, with its exposed steel beams and cement floors.
 |
| The area around Nippori Station, where I spent my last few hours in Japan, lacks the hustle bustle of downtown districts like Shinjuku and Shibuya. But it makes up for them with its quiet streets and charm. |
Upon walking down the stairs of the station on to the street, I was greeted by a streetscape which appeared modest and calming, compared to the bustling districts of Central Tokyo. As I meandered off the main street and through quite alleys, I came upon a residential area. The houses were cramped and close together, but the streetscape remained impeccably clean. It was calmer and more serene than anything I had previously seen in Tokyo (or all of China for that matter).
As I came to another main street, I saw the characters 中国饭店 which mean “Chinese restaurant” in both Chinese and Japanese, posted on a sign. Turning the corner, I came across two more restaurants with 中国饭店 placed in front, one of which was 兰州拉面 (Lanzhou pulled noodles) shop, like the ones spread all over China. Just past the noodle restaurant, I heard a familiar sound resonating from a voice down the street. “国际电话卡，国际电话卡” (guo2 ji4 dian4 hua4 ka3). An old Chinese woman was selling international phone cards, and using her bellowing voice as the primary marketing tactic. Apparently I had stumbled upon another one of Tokyo’s mini-Chinatowns.
 |
| The ever so ubiquitous Chinese Restaurant. You can’t go too many places in the world these days without finding one, and Tokyo is no exception. |
Since it was to be my final meal in Japan, I opted out of eating at one of the many Chinese restaurants, and continued away from the station, in search of another local Japanese dive.
After walking a ring around the area surrounding Nippori Station, I settled on a small restaurant which from the outside resembled those in which I had eaten in downtown Tokyo. The inside of the restaurant consisted of two rows of booths with a kitchen behind them. Next to the kitchen was an open-air refrigerator which housed various a la carte items. Not knowing whether I was supposed to sit and order, or select directly from the a la carte items, I sat at one of the tables and waited for a cue from the waitress. Looking around the restaurant, I could feel an entirely different vibe than those of central Tokyo. There were no flamboyantly dressed teenagers, or businessmen in suits looking as if they hadn’t slept in weeks. Instead, the mood of the clientele was a calmness I had yet to experience in Tokyo. Middle aged men and women, casually dressed, sat in the booths, eating their noodles and sushi at a slow pace while they chatted the afternoon away. When my waitress came back, it also became apparent that foreigners were much less common in these parts of Tokyo. Handing me the menu, she gave me the “Oh no, this guy doesn’t speak my language!” look that I had yet to see in Japan.
Granted, the servers at other Tokyo restaurants I had patronized didn’t speak much English either, but they clearly had a great deal of experience in serving gringos, and knew exactly how to take an order using a combination of pictures and hand signals. I motioned over to the a la carte area, pointing to myself, and then pointing to the food in a lame attempt to communicate the sentence “Why don’t I just pick it out myself?” The waitress replied with a nervous gesture, which I interpreted as “No, I don’t think so.” After several more failed attempts at non-verbal communication, I decided on another method…that is to test how well Chinese characters work in ordering food in Japanese restaurants.
The Japanese language itself is has little, if any, relation to Chinese, however the writing system borrows many of its ideograms from Chinese writing. The Chinese characters used in Mainland China today are the simplified set, which are modified from the traditional set used pre-1956 and still in use in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and most overseas Chinese communities. Japanese Kanji characters, as they are called, were taken from the traditional set of Chinese characters, but many still bare close resemblance to the simplified ones they were replaced by. Their meanings remain the same as the Chinese characters they were borrowed from, but the pronunciation is different. This is why many Japanese signs (like the one for Chinese restaurant) can be written the same in Chinese as they are in Japanese.
I wrote down the character 粉, which means “rice noodles” into my notebook and showed it to the waitress. With a look of amusement, the she took my pen and scribbled a sentence of Japanese into my notebook. As I mentioned before, many of the Japanese characters are borrowed from Chinese. However, a great deal of Japanese is also written using the Hiragana and Katakana writing systems, which bear no resemblance to Chinese whatsoever. Most of what the waitress had written had been either Hiragana and Katakana as it was completely incomprehensible to me.
“Kanji” I told the waitress, hoping that a) my pronunciation was accurate enough she would understand what I was saying and b) that the sentence “I only read kanji” could be extrapolated from my one-word statement.
“Oh, oh, kanji,” she replied, indicating she at least understood what word I was saying.
She yelled a few words to the cook in back, who then held up some rice noodles, as if to confirm that that was what I wanted to order. I nodded my head, and everybody smiled. We had made it this far. The waitress then asked me several more questions, and after 30 seconds of gestures, I finally realized she was asking “What do you want with your rice noodles?” Giving my trusty, old Chinese characters another chance to save the day, I wrote the character 肉 (meat, or pork) in my notebook. Another shot of excitement came to my servers face. We were making headway.
 |
| My final meal in Japan consisted of rice noodles, fried dumplings, and kimchi. The first person to identify the white and pink stuff in my noodles wins a prize. |
After putting the order in for my pork rice noodles, the waitress lead me over to the a la carte area, where I selected some fried dumplings and Korean kimchi. The waitress promptly whisked away my dumplings, and heated them up in a nearby microwave, not exactly my idea of gourmet, but at least I was being served. When the rice noodles arrived, the pork had been crumbled into little, stringy bites, and sprinkled on top of my noodles along with fresh scallions and a slice of an unidentified piece white matter with a pink coating (see picture). If anybody knows what this is, please let us know.
The noodles were impeccable, having a texture with just the right degree of chewiness, and served in a bland soup with just enough flavor to compliment the noodles and pork bits. Even the white and pink nugget of unidentifiable food matter hit the spot. Teamed with the spicy kimchi and the surprisingly zesty microwave fried dumplings, my final meal in Tokyo left me as culinarily satisfied as I had been throughout the entire trip.
Price: 1020 yen (aprox $9) Final Verdict: 9
Conclusions:
To obtain a deep level of intelligent insight about the cuisine and food culture of a particular country usually takes staying there for at least a few months, and dining in both different regions, and with different social classes of the populace. Before I make any far-fetched conclusions about Japanese food, I need to reaffirm that I was only in Japan for 3 days. And during those 3 days, I did not leave Tokyo proper, nor did I eat in any restaurants which cost more than $10 a meal. Additionally, I ate all of my meals in restaurants, and did not have the chance to try any home cooked food. Disclaimer out of the way, here are my final conclusions about Japanese food.
1) Like the country itself, Japanese food is highly efficient. The food I consumed was all small, portable, and required very little cooking time.
2) Generally speaking the food was highly nutritious, especially for restaurant food. Most of what I consumed consisted of rice, fish and seafood, and vegetables, either served raw (the healthiest way to eat food) or cooked without much oil.
3) Tokyoers like to be dispensed their food at bars, and by bar I mean the place you go to drink, I mean a physical bar inside a restaurant.
4) The Japanese food served outside of Japan is much less modified than Chinese food served outside of China.
5) Thanks to the plastic food models in windows, and the small morsels of restaurant English from Tokyo waiters and waitresses, you can eat in downtown Tokyo quite easily without knowing any Japanese. Outside of the downtown (and presumably in smaller cities) it is a little bit more taxing, but certainly can be done. If you can read and write Chinese characters, they may come in handy a bit too, but if you really want to be sure what you’re ordering, you’d be best to bring a phrase book.
6) After 3 days in Tokyo, I have nothing but good things to say about the food of Japan…well, maybe except for that hoagie sandwich overflowing with mayonnaise I had at 7-11. The food is tasty, healthy, and surprisingly affordable…even if you are only spending $5 a meal.
Permalink
10.06.07
Posted in Food and Drink, Fujian, Japan, Travel Log (Asia) at 5:34 am by Benjamin Ross
continued from A $5 Culinary Trip Through Tokyo (Part 1 of 3)
With a sour taste still in my mouth from the previous day’s 7-Eleven hoagie, I played it safe for my second breakfast in Japan…this of course meant another sushi bar. I found yet another cheap conveyor belt sushi joint in Shibuya (a hip shopping district in downtown Tokyo) and parked myself at the bar.
 |
| The sushi place I at my second day in Tokyo was almost an exact clone of the one I ate at on my first day…not that I’m complaining. |
The setup was nearly identical to the conveyor belt sushi place where I had dined two days before, and the sushi and sashimi looked and tasted identical to those at the other place. At the end of my meal I could not decipher anything about the second sushi joint which was different from the first. Even the prices had been virtually identical. It led me to wonder if sushi preparation is more about standards and uniformity than uniqueness and creativity. Maybe somebody who has spent more than 3 days in Japan can fill in here.
Cost of meal: 700 yen (approx $6 USD) Final Verdict: 7…just like the other sushi place.
In addition to all of the tempting Japanese food Tokyo had to offer, it is impossible to walk too far in Tokyo without taking in the sights and smells of good ol’ hamburgers and fries. Whereas in most parts of Mainland China American fast food is still relatively exotic, American grease has seemingly been more so integrated into the Japanese culinary psyche. In Tokyo, small dive restaurants advertise for hamburgers, french fries, and steaks, often being served in the same storefronts as traditional Japanese cuisine, and rarely more expensive than Japanese alternatives. Japan also has several of its own homegrown American fast food restaurants, the most prominent I noticed was called Lotteria. For lunch on my second day in Tokyo, I gave it a shot.
Like most of the fast food restaurants I saw in Tokyo, the Lotteria I went to also had 3 stories. The first storey opened up to the street and consisted of the kitchen and ordering area, and the second and third floors were both tight, cramped-in dining rooms. Inside the dining rooms were Tokyoers of all ages and demographics, reading the newspaper, sending text messages, and taking slow, gradual bites out of their fast food. As I approached the ordering area, my eyes were immediately drawn to Lotteria’s current specialty item, the tandori chicken burger, which I ordered along with a hamburger on the side.
 Japanese fast food at its finest. My personal recommendation goes to the Tandori Chicken Burger (top left) |
Wrapped in soft pita bread, and topped with lettuce, onion, and tandori sauce, the tandori chicken burger provided a surprisingly zesty fusion of Indian cuisine and American fast food. It easily ranks up there with the Wendy’s Spicy Chicken and the Taco Bell 7-Layer burrito as one of the more innovative fast food creations I have sampled. The fries and the hamburger, however, were sub-par, comparable to those of the homegrown burger joints which have popped up all over China in recent years. I would liken it to an hour-old McDonald’s hamburger coupled with semi-stale KFC french fries. Not exactly a fast food all star lineup.
Cost: 520 yen (approx $4.50 USD) for the Tandori Chicken value meal, and 100 yen (approx 90 cents) for the hamburger; Final Verdict: 5, If I were to rate the meal separately, the tandori chicken would get an 8 and the burger and fries a 2.
For dinner on my second, and last evening in Tokyo, I met up with my old friend Andrew Houston, who has lived in Tokyo for over 5 years. Leaving the choice of dining establishments in his hands, he suggested a meal of yakitori.
 |
|
Yakitori, or “grilled bird,” or in this case, grilled pork liver
|
Andrew took me to a small dive restaurant where we sat at the bar and he proceeded to order. Literally, “yakitori” means “grilled bird,” and I think they chose this name because it would have been too troublesome to use a more accurate name which would have been “anything possibly edible to humans…on a stick.” Our meal consisted of beef, pork, chicken, liver, and fish balls, all strung together on long, wooden toothpicks, and smothered in a thick sauce.
 |
|
More yakitori, now with beef, shrimp, and fish balls
|
As we consumed our yakitori and drank Asahi beers, Andrew struck up a conversation in Japanese with one of the waitresses. After an apparent communication mishap, Andrew turned to me and said, “That waitress has a strong accent when she speaks Japanese. I think she might be Chinese.”
When the waitress came back to the table, I asked her, in Chinese, “Are you Chinese?”
The waitress let out the token “woooaahhhh” (It’s probably not everyday she runs into a Chinese speaking white guy in Tokyo), and replied, “We are all Chinese,” pointing to the two other waitresses.
Overhearing our conversation, the other waitresses came over to say hello to the pair of bilingual gringos.
“Where in China are you from?” I asked the first waitress.
I probably shouldn’t have been so surprised when she quickly responded “Fuzhou,” as my former Chinese residence is well-known for its large amount of its people going abroad, but I never expected the first Chinese person I met after leaving China would be from Fuzhou as well. When I told her, in the Fuzhou dialect, “I used to live in Fuzhou” (one of the few sentences I can say properly), her jaw nearly hit the ground. After several minutes of reminiscing about Fuzhou shopping districts and fish ball restaurants, the waitress mentioned to me that there was an area, just down the street, where all of the shop owners are from Fuzhou. Unfortunately it was nearly 11 o’clock and all of the stores had closed for the next evening.
Andrew and I finished our Yakitori and 2 rounds of Asahi beer, and after bouncing English, Japanese, and Chinese around the room for an hour, we paid our tab and called it a night.
Cost: 2100 yen (aprox $18 USD, total for 2); Final Verdict: another 7
It was refreshing to find Tokyo residents with whom I could communicate, and reinforced the fact that you typically don’t have to look very hard to find Chinese people, especially ones from Fuzhou, in most parts of the world.
Permalink
10.02.07
Posted in Food and Drink, Japan, Travel Log (Asia) at 1:46 pm by Benjamin Ross
This past August, on my way from China back to the US, I spent 3 days in Tokyo. Japan has a long and colorful culinary history, and with just under 72 hours to work with, I wanted to consume as much of it as possible. Seeing as it would be impossible to sample every facet of Tokyo cuisine in 3 days, and that I was traveling in Japan on a Chinese budget, I focused my scope on Japanese food to that of small dive restaurants, most of which cost only around the equivalent of 5 or 6 US dollars per meal.
Before I had arrived in Japan, I was a little concerned as to how I would order food once I got there. Whenever I travel abroad, I generally try to avoid restaurants with English menus, because they are usually the places which are most adapted to foreigners and thus not as authentic as the small holes in the wall where locals dine. When I went to Mongolia last year I brought along a phrasebook which proved invaluable. Want to eat mutton? Look up “mutton” in the phrasebook, point to the Mongolian letters, and show them to the waitress. Want to eat potatoes? Look up “potatoes” in the phrasebook, point to the Mongolian letters, and show them to the waitress. This method worked like a charm, and allowed me to eat in restaurants where I otherwise would have had no way to order.
For my three days in Japan, I did not have the luxury of a phrasebook. A good portion of the Japanese language is made up of kanji characters, a large percentage of which are the same as traditional Chinese. I only speak a few words of Japanese, but have on several previous occasions glanced at Japanese magazines, and noticed I was able to understand quite a few words. So I was curious as to how far Chinese reading would get me in reading Japanese menus.
 |
| Ordering food in Tokyo is made easy, with life-sized food models, on display in the windows of most restaurants. |
I didn’t get to test this out much at first, however, because virtually every restaurant in downtown Tokyo has realistic-looking models of each dish on the menu placed in a window in front of the restaurant. In order to pick a restaurant, you can walk down the street, and without even going inside, glance over all the dishes offered. Once you find a place where the food looks good, you walk in, and signal to the waitress to come outside, and then point to what you want to eat. No menu required.
Most of the small restaurants in Tokyo are set up as bars, with the cooks in the middle, and for my first meal in Tokyo I found a small sushi bar in Shinjuku (Tokyo’s busiest central district).
 |
| A Tokyo sushi bar employs the conveyor belt system to dispense sushi and sashimi to hungy patrons. |
Tokyo sushi bars further simplify the ordering process by employing what I refer to as the “sushi conveyor belt.” As you sit around the bar, pieces of sushi and sashimi revolve around a conveyor belt which makes its way around the bar. Each item is placed on a different colored plate. Each plate has a price in yen. As the food revolves, you take what you want. At the end of your meal, the waitress counts up the price of your plates and gives you the bill. It is by far the most efficient way of ordering food I have ever encountered..
As for the food itself, the sushi and sashimi I ate my first night was surprisingly not too different from any other sushi I had eaten in Fuzhou or the US…which still means delicious The only variant being the degree of freshness which was definitely fresher than Kansas City, but about the same as Fuzhou.
 |
|
My first authentic Japanese meal
|
Granted, I am not a connoisseur of Japanese food, (and I did not go to any expensive places) but I did find that at least in regards to sushi and sashimi, the Japanese cuisine found in other parts of the world is not nearly as altered as is the case for Chinese food. Plates were priced from 110 (approx. $1 USD) yen to 440 yen (approx. $4 USD), with the cheaper plates consisting of sushi rolls, containing permutations of veggies, imitation crab, and tuna, and the more expensive ones containing mostly sashimi with shrimp, eel, and raw fish. Soy sauce, wasabi, and tea came on the side.
Price of meal: 720 yen (approx $6.50 USD) Final Verdict: 7
I began my second day in Tokyo with a stop at 7-11 on the way to the Yakasuni Shrine. There is much to be learned about a particular culture based on what products are available at its convenience stores and kiosks, and 7-11 is no exception. Racks of pre-prepared sushi and curry meals in neat little treys were stacked up inside the refrigerators, and divided container by the register contained greasy treats on sticks which resembled street food.
My original reason for stopping in at 7-11 was to look for the cartons of fresh chocolate milk which I drink compulsively every time I pass a 7-11 when I am in Hong Kong. Fresh milk, and especially fresh chocolate milk are not easy to come by in China. Unfortunately, there was no fresh chocolate milk at the Tokyo 7-11. I told the attendant, who spoke a bit of English, that I was looking for milk, and every time I pointed to a brown-colored carton, she told me “no, coffee.” By the time I had finished sifting through all of the drinks, I had counted nearly 20 different cold coffee drinks, but still no chocolate milk.
 |
|
Tokyo 7-11 snacks.
|
Since I was also getting hungry, I decided to take a venture into the realm of Japanese 7-11 food. After careful consideration, I selected what appeared to be a pre-prepared mini-hoagie sandwich…probably not the most authentically Japanese food available, but why not give Japanese Western fusion food a try? The sandwich came wrapped in cellophane and contained sliced meat and a white creamy substance between the bun (I tried as hard as possible not to make that sound sexual, honest). It didn’t take long to identify the creamy substance as when it finally hit my mouth I wasn’t sure if I was eating a sandwich or chugging a bottle of Hellmann’s mayonnaise.
Price: 120 yen (approx $1) Final Verdict: 2
After my hour of being bombarded by Japanese War Propaganda at the Yakasuni Shrine, I made my way to Harajuku, a trendy area where Japanese teenagers hang out and showcase their latest fashions, many of which resemble Halloween costumes more than everyday clothing. I stopped in an underground shop near the main drag of Harajuku to have my lunch. As I walked down the narrow stairs, I entered a room where 3 or 4 locals, all sitting at different tables, were smoking cigarettes and watching a baseball game on TV. Unfortunately, there were no food models, so the waiter handed me a menu, which was only about 1/3 kanji. Other than a dish which appeared to be 麻婆豆腐 (ma2 po2 dou4 fu, spicy Sichuan tofu) I couldn’t make out any of names of the dishes. So much for my Chinese reading helping me to read Japanese menus! Seeing I was having trouble with the menu, the waiter then brought me a stack of about 20 notebook-paper sized laminated cards, with pictures of each dish on them. I pointed to a noodle soup, and the waiter nodded his head and said “oohh…miso.”
 |
|
The most multifarious miso soup I have ever experienced.
|
Previously, the only miso soup I had consumed had consisted of little more than broth and tofu, however, this miso soup was the full magilla, consisting of noodles, sliced bamboo shoots and carrots, seaweed, corn, and a couple slices of pork. The noodles where chewy and filling and coupled with the variety of toppings, made for different tastes with every bite.
Price: 500 yen (approx $4.50) Final Verdict: 6
After a day of exploring Harajuku and Shibuya, I made it over to the Tokyo Dome to see the Yomiuri Giants take on the Chunichi Dragons. As would be expected for a baseball game, there were the usual hot dogs and hamburgers in the concession stands. There also were sushi plates and rice bowls with various toppings. I opted for the curry pork rice bowl.
 |
| Take me out to the ballgame. Take me out to the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and…….a curry pork rice bowl, only at the Tokyo Dome. |
The bowl or rice was sectioned off into two “regions” with one being chopped up meat covered in curry sauce, the other covered with shredded meat and onions. White rice was on the bottom. Now, there is something inherently strange about sitting through a baseball game while eating concessions with chopsticks, but I am certainly not complaining. In the words of Homer Simpson “mmm…super pork curry rice bowl.”
Price: 540 yen (approx $5) Final Verdict: 8
Twenty four hours and several thousand calories into my Japan trip, I retired to my youth hostel, with blisters on my feet from all the walking, and a full belly of Japanese food.
continued in A $5 Culinary Trip Through Tokyo (Part 2 of 3)
Permalink
08.16.07
Posted in Announcements, Food and Drink at 2:17 am by Benjamin Ross
My new site www.howtoorderchinesefood.com has now been up for almost a month, and has been undergoing major updates since I first mentioned it in this blog. Since all of the pictures on the site are taken by me, of food that I personally consume, the updates have been slow but frequent, but now there are 83 different dishes listed, plus listings for various vegetables, fruits, and condiments. I also now have new sections on Chinese breakfast and seafood. Additionally many of the descriptions have been updated to be more insightful and less monotonous than they originally were when the site was first launched. In the future, I plan to add downloadable PDFs and hopefully a forum to discuss, what else but Chinese food. If anybody has any corrections or suggestions, please feel free to leave them here. In the meantime, check out the site, and be sure to recommend it to anybody on their way to China.
Permalink
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »
