Beijing food diary
This has been a dreadful week. I'm so glad that I survived and that it's coming to an end. Somebody show me an easy chair!
I know that it is to my mother's dismay that I have chosen this line of work. In fact, it's every Asian mother's nightmare to see their child packed off to some faraway land to pursue a career in spin-doctoring, number crunching, stem cell research on aborted female foetuses, whatever. To them, it doesn't matter if their offspring loot and pillage for a living. Oh, but to not be there when they come back from a hard day's work to serve up a steaming toureen of black chicken soup, slow boiled with a fistful of danggui and ginseng for 12 hours (something that smells that bad CANNOT possibly be good for you) - now that is what defines a mother's misery.
Lucky for me, and my mother's sanity, I live in Beijing, a city where people just don't seem to stop eating, and quite economically too. Today, I had a proposal to submit by 3pm and two meetings to attend before popping down the gym and then going round to see Saipin at night who had just come back from Austria and was crashing with Di while in town. Oh, I knew from the moment I swung my feet over the side of the bed that it was going to be a LONG day and a lunchbreak was out of the question. So I dropped by the jianbing stall downstairs before jumping into a taxi for work. There's a short line so I place my order and wait while the Mrs. Jianbing does her scallion pancake thing on her griddle. A white guy scoots up to the stall on his bicyle and gestures at the line then gestures at his watch, shrugs at the jianbing guy and looks hopeful. So Mr. Jianbing is turns round and asks us if we mind letting the waiguo pengyou have his served up first because he's late for work.
Jianbing Shushu: What do you say kids? Let's help out our foreign friend here, he's gonna be late for work.
Chinese guy in line: Absolutely not!
Me: Hell. No. I'm late for work too! And I'm foreign, so how come I don't get preferential treatment?
JS: Oh? You're a foreigner? But you look Chinese to me. Where are you from?
Me: Malaysia.
JS: Ah... you're all Muslims there! You're our brethren!
Me: Um.. yes... assalamualaikum.
JS (looks round at a small crowd gathering to stare at the Chinese-looking foreigner): Look what we have here! She's Hui Zu like us, she's one of our own!
Me *uncomfortably*: Ahem... yesh... more chilli please, we like it spicy.
JS: So how come you look like a Chinese girl then?
Me: Well uh... I'm ethnic Chinese.
JS: Oho! It goes back to the time when Cheng Ho went down the South Seas! *looking excitedly around at the crowd of senior Beijingrens* Do you remember the time, way back in the Ming Dynasty say... oh... 800 years ago! She's a descendant of Cheng Ho!
Me: Uh well... I don't think so. Cheng Ho did lack the necessary equipment to reproduce because he was a uhuhuhuhhh.... uhuhhuhuh... *nudge nudge wink wink*
JS: Well he didn't go down the South Seas alone, did he? You must be a direct descendant of one of the virgins he took with him to present to your ruler. Anyway, here's your jianbing, Malaysian foreign friend.
The greasy goodness that is a perfect jianbing sustained me for most part of the day although I refuelled with a Magnum ice-cream and huge mug of coffee somewhere post - official lunchtime. I was famished by the time I finished at the gym and was really looking forward to some tasty vegetarian jiaozis or dumplings at the restaurant behind my apartment. It's one of those regular hole-in-the-wall type eateries that are not for China newbies and persons with any regard for hygiene, food preparation or in general. Growing up on the mean bacterium-riddled sidewalks of Kuala Lumpur and being a vegetarian goes a long way to stave off Beijing Belly, so the slimy table tops and peeling walls never bothered me.
I sat down and placed an order for 3 liangs of jiaozis. I noticed that the customer on the next table - a female high school student judging by the ill-fitting tracksuits they are made to wear - had brought a dirty looking puppy into the restaurant. Now I love dogs with their pure, unconditional love and relative self-sufficiency compared to human babies who are the REAL bane of the earth. But this was a dirty, mangy looking puppy who looked it it hadn't been washed since its mother licked it clean at birth with the rest of the litter. Its owner fawned over it and fed it dumpling scraps which it nibbled at half-heartedly. She then scooped it up in her arms and padded over proudly to the waitress who had just taken my order. The waitress hesitated at first but, encouraged by the owner, took the pup into her arms and cradled it like a baby. She cooed and lavished it with love and then decided that she was going to bring it into the kitchen and show it to the chef.
I am watching this little drama the whole time with open-mouthed disbelief. I am no fingernail scrubber but I was blown away at how little the waitresses cared about food hygiene. My waitress emerged from a kitchen in a few minutes with a steaming plate of dumplings and placed it on my table. I looked down and tried to pick out black specks that may resemble fleas or tick eggs. The senior waitresses noticed my hesitation and served me a glass of hot water, as if washing the dumplings down with it would kill whatever germs that had made the great leap from their canine host to my dinner. I placed my faith in Matt D's maxim of eating stuff off the floor bu gan bu jing, chi le bu bing! - which essentially espouses the benefits to one's health through ingestion of unsanitary food - and made a hasty meal of the dumplings after dousing them in as much vinegar as I could.
I know that it is to my mother's dismay that I have chosen this line of work. In fact, it's every Asian mother's nightmare to see their child packed off to some faraway land to pursue a career in spin-doctoring, number crunching, stem cell research on aborted female foetuses, whatever. To them, it doesn't matter if their offspring loot and pillage for a living. Oh, but to not be there when they come back from a hard day's work to serve up a steaming toureen of black chicken soup, slow boiled with a fistful of danggui and ginseng for 12 hours (something that smells that bad CANNOT possibly be good for you) - now that is what defines a mother's misery.
Lucky for me, and my mother's sanity, I live in Beijing, a city where people just don't seem to stop eating, and quite economically too. Today, I had a proposal to submit by 3pm and two meetings to attend before popping down the gym and then going round to see Saipin at night who had just come back from Austria and was crashing with Di while in town. Oh, I knew from the moment I swung my feet over the side of the bed that it was going to be a LONG day and a lunchbreak was out of the question. So I dropped by the jianbing stall downstairs before jumping into a taxi for work. There's a short line so I place my order and wait while the Mrs. Jianbing does her scallion pancake thing on her griddle. A white guy scoots up to the stall on his bicyle and gestures at the line then gestures at his watch, shrugs at the jianbing guy and looks hopeful. So Mr. Jianbing is turns round and asks us if we mind letting the waiguo pengyou have his served up first because he's late for work.
Jianbing Shushu: What do you say kids? Let's help out our foreign friend here, he's gonna be late for work.
Chinese guy in line: Absolutely not!
Me: Hell. No. I'm late for work too! And I'm foreign, so how come I don't get preferential treatment?
JS: Oh? You're a foreigner? But you look Chinese to me. Where are you from?
Me: Malaysia.
JS: Ah... you're all Muslims there! You're our brethren!
Me: Um.. yes... assalamualaikum.
JS (looks round at a small crowd gathering to stare at the Chinese-looking foreigner): Look what we have here! She's Hui Zu like us, she's one of our own!
Me *uncomfortably*: Ahem... yesh... more chilli please, we like it spicy.
JS: So how come you look like a Chinese girl then?
Me: Well uh... I'm ethnic Chinese.
JS: Oho! It goes back to the time when Cheng Ho went down the South Seas! *looking excitedly around at the crowd of senior Beijingrens* Do you remember the time, way back in the Ming Dynasty say... oh... 800 years ago! She's a descendant of Cheng Ho!
Me: Uh well... I don't think so. Cheng Ho did lack the necessary equipment to reproduce because he was a uhuhuhuhhh.... uhuhhuhuh... *nudge nudge wink wink*
JS: Well he didn't go down the South Seas alone, did he? You must be a direct descendant of one of the virgins he took with him to present to your ruler. Anyway, here's your jianbing, Malaysian foreign friend.
The greasy goodness that is a perfect jianbing sustained me for most part of the day although I refuelled with a Magnum ice-cream and huge mug of coffee somewhere post - official lunchtime. I was famished by the time I finished at the gym and was really looking forward to some tasty vegetarian jiaozis or dumplings at the restaurant behind my apartment. It's one of those regular hole-in-the-wall type eateries that are not for China newbies and persons with any regard for hygiene, food preparation or in general. Growing up on the mean bacterium-riddled sidewalks of Kuala Lumpur and being a vegetarian goes a long way to stave off Beijing Belly, so the slimy table tops and peeling walls never bothered me.
I sat down and placed an order for 3 liangs of jiaozis. I noticed that the customer on the next table - a female high school student judging by the ill-fitting tracksuits they are made to wear - had brought a dirty looking puppy into the restaurant. Now I love dogs with their pure, unconditional love and relative self-sufficiency compared to human babies who are the REAL bane of the earth. But this was a dirty, mangy looking puppy who looked it it hadn't been washed since its mother licked it clean at birth with the rest of the litter. Its owner fawned over it and fed it dumpling scraps which it nibbled at half-heartedly. She then scooped it up in her arms and padded over proudly to the waitress who had just taken my order. The waitress hesitated at first but, encouraged by the owner, took the pup into her arms and cradled it like a baby. She cooed and lavished it with love and then decided that she was going to bring it into the kitchen and show it to the chef.
I am watching this little drama the whole time with open-mouthed disbelief. I am no fingernail scrubber but I was blown away at how little the waitresses cared about food hygiene. My waitress emerged from a kitchen in a few minutes with a steaming plate of dumplings and placed it on my table. I looked down and tried to pick out black specks that may resemble fleas or tick eggs. The senior waitresses noticed my hesitation and served me a glass of hot water, as if washing the dumplings down with it would kill whatever germs that had made the great leap from their canine host to my dinner. I placed my faith in Matt D's maxim of eating stuff off the floor bu gan bu jing, chi le bu bing! - which essentially espouses the benefits to one's health through ingestion of unsanitary food - and made a hasty meal of the dumplings after dousing them in as much vinegar as I could.
posted by Jo at 12:51 AM
2 Comments:
bu gan bu jing, chi le bu bing
nice one! i'll try to remember this when i eat at these similar places
damn "waiguo pengyou", even get special treatment at jianbin stands, what next, jumping the queue to pee?
good post, you painted a familiar scene of bustling beijing morning, I can almost smell the slightly-burnt wraps on that egg jianbin.
elfuzz
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