Foods of Shenzhen

There is a lot to say about food in Shenzhen. Because people come here from all over China, there is a lot of different food.  Mostly, I'm pretty clueless - I don't know Chinese regional foods well and so I know I am missing a lot. However, sometimes we find things we like and can learn about.  These are a few examples:

Hong Kong diners. These are really comforting places.  The food is slightly more Western - there might be scrambled eggs, spaghetti, sweet and sour pork.  It also reminds us of being able to go to Hong Kong, which we can't do now due to covid restrictions.  So one hot rainy evening, I was going to a book club and I stopped to eat beforehand - I had wonton noodle soup and feel strangely homesick for somewhere (I was not sure where - not Michigan, not the UK, not even India or HK).  Anyway, it was comforting and I see why a bowl of soup is so important to Cantonese people - it felt healthy.

Another Cantonese wonder is dim sum. We found a nice place at a mall called Jade Garden. It had lovely tablecloths.  Our favorite dim sum are the BBQ pork buns and the shrimp dumplings - the real standards I think.  I never once had dim sum before I came to China, so I am glad I have been able to taste it.

This was last Saturday when Charles and I went to a Chengdu buffet at the Hilton. I won the dinner, which was great. The food is Sichuan - so the main flavours are Sichuan peppercorns and chilis.  I really like this food - most Chinese also like it.  The famous meal is Sichuan hotpot.  At this buffet, they had so many things - a lot of crab and rice in bamboo, and this whole fish dish, which I see a lot around Shenzhen - whole fish cooked in the chilis with tofu strips and bean sprouts.  Really good. People often drink beer or coconut drink to balance the spice. There was also black rice wine - sort of sweet. 

One night, we went to a Xinjiang restaurant - Xinjiang is the northwest of China, sort of central Asia.  So the food is different - seems like stews and mutton. We had a huge cauldron of chicken and potatoes and peppers, and some honey drink, with flat breads.  It was very good.  There were dancers, too.

  I like Japanese food from our trips there, but it has taken me years to find the ingredients in Shenzhen. This week for lunch I made okonomiyaki - the pancakes we had in Hiroshima.  It's cabbage, egg, flour, some noodles fried as a pancake. Then you put mayonaise, sauce, sea week flakes, and bonito flakes on top.  I had miso soup too.  Might be easier to find a Japanese restaurant, but oh well. 

I will keep writing about food because it's so interesting here. I am going to try to eat more things.