Qing Dao China - Parts 1-6

In late 2010 I had the great fortune, through the magic of the Internet and machinations of Match.com, of meeting a wonderful Chinese woman who, to make a short story even shorter, became my dearly beloved in late 2011. As it happens, we first met on the day before she embarked on a planned trip to her home city of Qing Dao. During the following month, we kept in touch through the continued magic of the internet (e-mail) with our main topic of discussion being the meals she ate throughout the month. From her descriptions, mouth-watering good and somewhat exotic – the boy who ate the live bee larva one image I still struggle with. For anyone familiar with the Chinese culture this comes as no surprise. As I have come to learn, food, eating, cooking, and the sharing of these experiences lies at the heart of Chinese friends and family.

During these past few weeks, almost one year after our wedding day, I finally had the chance to visit the middle kingdom and get a small taste of the real Chinese food experience. I made it a pass-time along the way to chronicle the various meals we ate and thought the LTH forum would be a good place to share these, so in the posts that follow, I’ll give you all a window into my recent trip.

Our main destination was the Eastern coastal city of Qing Dao in Shan Dong province, but our first stop was in the Chinese capital Beijing. Beijing is the capital of politics, history, business, and culture in China, but the cooking in Shan Dong was by far superior to what we ate in Beijing. I had been warned about this ahead of time. We were also somewhat constrained in Beijing by our schedule of meeting old friends and visiting historic sites where the food is targeted towards the easily fleeced out-of-town tourists. Despite all this, there were a few memorable moments.

First, the obligatory bad-English-in-a-restaurant moment. This one kudos to a coffee shop in the Tian Tan Temple. I was debating between the Dry Cookies and Defu Chocolate before considering the “Who force planes.” Eventually I made do with a cup of coffee to overcome jet lag, thinking that maybe I was just too tired to read straight.



Next comes Donkey Meat stuffed pancake. A kind of street food, although much of the Beijing Street food in the main down town area seems to have moved into small storefronts. We found this quite tasty delicacy in a eatery specializing in Donkey meat, sometime affectionately translated as “Ass-Meat.” Here is a poster that greets you at the door. Donkey is saying “My meat tastes better than your meat” – a comparison I hope to never make -



Apparently Donkey meat is quite common since my in-laws bought me a big chunk of roasted Donkey meat once they heard that I liked it. The Beijing donkey meat in the pancake was good. Tasted a bit like what chunks of warm corned beef folded into Naan bread.



Finally, a picture of a sautéed vegetable dish ordered at a lake front restaurant at QianHai lake to the north of the Forbidden City. This dish, in my opinion, was the best thing I ate in Beijing. The oval shaped thing in the middle of the picture is a Chinese date, not an olive as I first thought.



Along the way I also tried a good Peking Duck although I didn’t get a good picture. It was an excellent tender, crispy, and fatty duck cut at our table into delicate slices that we wrapped in thin flour pancakes with a savory/sweet sauce and strips of cucumber and radish, but for me tasted best when eaten alone so that you could savor the crispy skin and fat without any distraction. Also had a meal at a Szechuan restaurant that was good but not great. Next trip, we need to go to the Sichuan province to try the real thing.

Before moving on, I should also mention that the Great Wall is truly great – a unbelievably massive and beautiful construction that all should see. The Lama temple (YongHe Gong) was a personal favorite of mine – the smell of incense flowing through the air as you pass through multiple temples, each with a more dramatic set of buddahs. The forbidden city while impressive was so overrun with tourists that it was hard to appreciate, although we did have a taste of royal tranquility in a visit to a side garden that housed the ceramics museum, with some artifacts dating back more than 5000 years. The main palaces were swarming with so many people deep and entry to most buildings blocked off so that you could only peep in through glass walls at the former palaces. I had hoped to visit the mausoleum housing Mao’s body for a look, but the lines were too long. Maybe next time. I will end with two final non-food shots. One of five bridges in the Forbidden city reflected in the tranquil waters as a parade of tourists flows by.



And a second of a gnarled cedar tree many hundreds of years old in the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden city. Imagine me being jostled on all sides by a cast of thousands as I took this, but on a less crowded day I could have spent hours just admiring the trees.



In my next post I’ll move on to Qing Dao and start getting into the heart of our best meals.

Thanks for posting. I'm looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip. That bridge shot is a thing of beauty.

Beijing is a massive world city, one of the most important in the modern world. With that position comes some impressive sites, but also traffic, crowds, and 24 hour-a-day smog that had my eyes burning. A four hour high-speed rail ride to the south east brought us to the much more manageable city of Qing Dao. Known in the US primarily as the home to Tsing Tao beer, the city is also quite large on its own with more than 8 million residents in the greater metropolitan area and construction as far as the eye can see. Despite this size, it’s known as one of China’s most livable cities, nestled between the Lao Shan mountains and Pacific Ocean in a temperate climate.

My trip to Qing Dao was enhanced since I came to visit as a guest of my new in-laws and was treated to meals almost every night by their friends who welcomed me with a generosity that I had not expected. While the pictures I took show some view into the meals we ate, some of the best lessons I learned on this trip dealt with respect for family and friends, the joys of sharing and hospitality, and the meaning of a greater family that extends beyond blood relatives. This was the essence of the Chinese meal that I had never appreciated in the states. It was in this spirit that all of these meals took on a flavor beyond what can be shown in pictures.

But on with the show. I started a bit slow with the pictures so missed a few good things when I first arrived. Qing Dao had more traditional street food than I had seen in Beijing. The streets are dotted with food carts, really motorcycles with carts attached, that served a number of steamed buns, grilled meat and seafood skewers, and Jianbing - large flat pancakes coated with a cracked egg and folded together with rice crackers and a variety of fillings. There is a good like on You Tube if you want to see this in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knOhLrXcxhc Maybe next trip I’ll have more chance to record some street food.

Qing Dao also has an interesting custom as the home of Tsing Tao beer. In many small shops, you can buy Tsing Tao draft beer in plastic bags. They tap the keg in front of you and connect a plastic bag to a scale and sell you as much as you want. There are even special Tsing Tao branded bags they use for this. I was told of this custom before I came so its one of the first things I did when I got there. 12 oz beer costs 2 Yuan (~30 cents) so not a bad deal!

Here is the bag being filled:



And my father-in-law displaying our haul:



Finally, a picuture of me with an individually packaged chicken foot from the grocery store



The first true meal I had was hosted by family friend Mr. Wong at his hotel. My mother in law and father in law are both violin teachers and retired performers in Qing Dao. For the record, my lovely wife is a violinist at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and I highly recommend you take the chance to hear the CSO if you have the chance - its a world class Chicago institution that is not always fully appreciated by the locals. In this case, Mr. Wong was the father on one of my mother-in-law's students, so this meal served as a kind of appreciation for the work she had done as well as a celebration of her daughter’s marriage and greeting for me. As in all the meals to come, this was hosted in a private room around a large round table with a Lazy-Susan in the middle around which were placed 10-20 dishes. Usually 5-10 to start the meal with more added over time. In this case we were also treated to several dishes served to each individually – a thin sliced steak to honor the American and sea cucumber, known not for its taste, but more for health properties.



The taste was bland and texture rubbery, although it had been poached for so long that it was soft to the bite. Served with a salty/savory sauce with maybe a bean paste base.
The connection between food and health is something I found distinctly Chinese. Foods are known not just for their taste and overall nutrition, but also for specific health benefits. This extend’s to combinations of foods that should or should not be eaten together based on the effect on the body. Have a headache? They have a remedy. Pancreas not well? A different meal. I was given so much advice about food that by the end of the trip I told my hosts that if I followed everyone’s advice I would both be eating everything, and eating nothing. So I threw caution to the wind and tried everything.

Here is a so-so shot of the first 12 dishes we were served, not including steak and sea cucumber.



I believe there were more dishes served before we were done, but I learned an important lesson that night on the joys of “Gambei!” Sometimes translated as “cheers,” it really means “bottoms up” and the whole party joined in on many many rounds of Gambei, with Mr. Wong taking special pleasure in man-to-man cheers with me. I lost count around 15-20. Fortunately we were drinking Tsing Tao beer and not hard liquor or I wouldn’t have walked out in one piece. As it turned out, I walked out the door leaving my in-laws and wife in a mild state of shock, yet somewhat amused, at my persistence in keeping up, if nothing else. I did form a special bond with Mr. Wong though, who came out a little worse for the evening. My Chinese is very very limited and his English not much better, so our night of “Gambei” let us become closer in a way that we would have never reached by talking, so here is a picture of me with my new Qing Dao drinking buddy.



In future meals I learned my lesson and held off the toasts. If you don’t take the bait on the first drink, they generally will respect your decision, although you might miss out on some of the camaraderie.

Finally what I recall as the best dish of the evening. Picture a little blurry, reflecting my state – prawns split, covered with crab roe (eggs), and roasted in the oven. Juicy tender shrimp with a buttery taste and texture from the roe piled up on top and browned in the oven.



More food pictures coming as we move to more traditional Shan Dong style meals in the next post.

Qing Dao is a coastal city surrounded by mountains on all sides. The result is a cuisine that combines seafood with wild vegetables harvested or collected in the mountains. This is the food of the Shandong province or “Lu” cooking – one of the 8 regional cuisines in China (others in include Chuan/Szechuan and Yue/Cantonese). The country side is covered with small farms and small plots hidden among the hills. Seafood in the Chinese style includes every living thing that comes for the sea – fish, shell fish, mollusks, star fish, jelly fish, sea cucumbers, and all variety of sea weed and sea plant. From the mountains come many types of wild vegetables, many now harvested on farms, and many types of wild mushroom that are still collected by hand in the woods. Many local farmers will maintain small fields in the mountains and sell their produce to restaurants or by roadside. Water from the Lao Shan Mountain is also known throughout China for its good taste and is one distinctive ingredient of Tsing Tao beer. Here is my dearly betrothed collecting water directly from cracks in a rock cliff near the highest peak of Lao Shan Mountain



Tea is also grown in the mountains. Here is one shot of tea fields near Nine-Dragon Peak.



Tea leaves collected and drying in large baskets.



And spread out on the floor.



Mountain towns and tourist sites are peppered with vendors selling locally grown tea, but a local expert told us that the best time to buy is really in early May when the leaves are still strong and more flavorful, and before the farmers spray the fields with pesticide to keep the bugs away through the summer. But tea from this time comes at a high price multiple to the standard harvest. Similarly, the fisherman will come in every day and sell the local catch in open air markets. The result is that local restaurants have a wide variety of local ingredients at their disposal. Often when you walk in the door, the foods available for the day are displayed in an entry room where you can look over the bounty and discuss with the owner what they will prepare, a conversation that can take some time. Here are a few shots of my in-laws having such a discussion after we spent the day hiking






And the resulting meal about half way through dinner when they brought out the dumplings:



Still not the best shots, but you get the idea. This was after we had eaten about half way through and dumplings just arrived. Dishes included dumplings, bottom left, with sweet potato flour mixed into the wrapper and mountain vegetables as filling. Clockwise there is fried wild Ginseng; remains of hot-sour soup, a sautéed vegetable dish; pancakes made with scallion and yet another wild vegetable; a straw-like seaweed mixed with clams; and wild mushrooms slightly salty with cilantro. Not clear what all the greens were. Best dish to me was the mushroom dish. Also notice that no rice is served with the meal. I guess this is obvious to all Chinese, but as an American I was surprised that I was never once served a bowl of rice at any meal I ate during the trip. Carbs came from noodle dishes, potato pancakes, but more often from dumplings served at the end of the meal. The only rice I ate was for breakfast/lunch as congee, but a very light watery congee compared to the (Cantonese?) style I have had in Chicago’s China town.

What was most surprising to me about all these dishes was that although the preparations were simple, each bite was a burst of flavor. Each green had a distinct taste. Some more bitter, some sweet and crunchy like a broccoli stem, some more earthy. The mushrooms had a sweet woody flavor that I have not tasted before. The pancakes a special fresh creaminess from eggs that were likely collected that day.

For some perspective, this whole meal costs around 170 Yuan – a little less than $30.

Two wrap up this post, here is one view of the Tao temple that we walked by during our hike. The meal we ate was served just over a dam on the edge of this lake. The mushrooms we ate were gathered in these hills.

The next day we travelled across the bay to Huang-Dao – Yellow Island – which I later learned is not an island but rather a peninsula across the bay from Qing Dao. To reach Huang-Dao we travelled across the longest over-sea bridge in the world. Something like 40 km long. So long there is even an exit half way across to reach a second town. So long that I was wondering if it would ever end. Huang-Dao is kind of a suburb of Qing Dao that is now under massive development – literally hundreds of new residential buildings going up in big blocks.

While on this trip we stopped by yet a remote restaurant down a country road – this one just a concrete El-shaped block building with a bunch of rooms in a row, a little run-down looking, with a big table in each room. They called this a farmer restaurant since they are run by local farmers who cook food from the area. On the road we saw a number of farmers, or really farmer’s wives, selling vegetables and chickens by the side of the road, so at least you know the Chicken is fresh.

On this occasion we were accompanied by a local communist party member who brought us here since he had some special connection with the owner. Maybe only party members get to eat there. I didn’t get into all the details of that arrangement, but as you’ll see in some later posts there are often benefits to having some local official along when you travel about China.
In this case I was a bit skeptical when I first walked in, but was soon convinced by the food:



Meal started with six dishes – a whole steamed fish in the front, and then clockwise a pile of steamed clams mixed with oil, herbs, and garlic, sliced potato fried in an egg batter, boiled peanuts, whole sautéed local chicken, and pickled bitter melon. Although it looks simple, every dish was delicious and once again overloaded with flavor. The chicken had an expecially rich meaty flavor. In the background, you can see our good friend Chun-Li with her double peace sings, and my father in law, both enjoying the meal.

In this next shot, a few more dishes have arrived – baked taro root in the front and way in the back, large snails with a dipping sauce. Better view of the fried potato to the left of the Taro.



Finally at the end a platter of pork/vegetable dumplings brought out. Snails now easier to see on the left. All told, it was 10 big dishes for 6 people. A word of advice – if you are ever served giant snails and only have a pair of chopsticks to eat them with, you jamb one chopstick into the hole right through the body of the beast and pry him out. A lot of trial, error, and observation before a figured that one out.



On the way back we drove by a Buddhist temple in a nearby mountain. There was a guarded road crossing at the bottom of the hill that our party member had them lift so that we could drive to the top. At the top was a newer temple, but actively used by the monks. Apparently none were around, because a girl tending an information stand asked us to haul up a bunch of boxes of Buddhist books into the temple



So in exchange I thought I’d take a few pictures in the temple, although its not normally allowed



And to wrap up this installment, here is a nice sign I saw at a local grocery store. Crispy Pork Floss! How long now until Johnson and Johnson comes out with bacon floss?

Beautiful!

Really fascinating! Great reports and photos! I am looking forward to more.

Another day, another trip to the mountains. This time to 9-waters trail, so named because of the nine places along the hike where water springs from the ground to form a river or water fall. Today as we drove in we were in a larger group, about ten people. As you can guess, this meal would require more dishes and I was a little more on the ball this time so took some close-ups so that its easier to see the dishes.

We all piled into a big van driven by another local party official to get up to the main trailhead. Very nice of him to accomodate up and spend the whold day showing us around. One of the many people who extended their hospitality to make this suchy a pleasant trip.

This meal was served on a roof deck in a small village that contained many summer homes for local villagers mixed in with wealthy local businessmen, so all around us were mountains, cliffs, forests, and red rooftops. About 80 degrees with a nice cool breeze.



And now for the food – or almost all of it. A few more dishes brought out after I took this shot:



And here are close-ups of most of the dishes. The ones I didn't capture were the steamed bun and corn bread in the center, a delicious egg and greens dish on the left, a kind of seaweed salad in the center made from skinng brown seaweed, and in the far back scallion pancakes. In fact, just those dishes would be a ful meal for me, but Chinese hospitality demands more.

Chicken and tree-ear stew. Tree ear is a common type of fungus. Here it has soaked up some the broth from the chicken for a very tasty treat.



Whole deep fried fish. You eat the whole thing. About 4-5 inches long. Very crispy, meaty, and crunchy. Much to my surprise, the head was especially tasty. Soaked up a lot of oil. A pile of spicy/5-spice powder on the side for dipping the fish. Yum!



Dumplings – wild vegetable and pork. And braised pork belly – cooked and served in its own fat. Meat was soft from being immersed in fat. Fat was soft and creamy in chunks. What could be better? Well actually the pork belly the next day wa even better, but more on that in the next post.



Here is the inside of one dumpling. This is typical of the other dumplings I had on this trip - lots of chopped up greens sauteed with some pork and garlic for taste.



Left side is pickled mountain ginseng. Front is home-made firm tofu with soy/garlic dipping sauce. Tofu had a wonderful chewy texture and a flavor as good as any tofu I have ever had – imagine the flavor of store bought tofu and triple that, but not too intense. Almost a nutty taste. Just outstanding.



Left side is mountain greens with peanuts. Slightly salty and sautéed. Right are frozen mountain cherries. We saw these along the paths during our hike, so seem quite common in the area.



This dish is made from a seaweed that is harvested, and then cooked at a low heat to remove a sea-weed tasting gelatin that is then cooled and cut into blocks or slices. Its often served in the mountains of this area to cool people off after hiking. I normally don’t care for it as it can have a very potent dried fish taste. Others seemed to think it quite good.



I believe that this is Chinese broccoli served spicy – sautéed with garlic and peppers. Was quite wonderful.



Finally a stew made of cut up chicken. Outstanding intense chicken flavor. Note the chicken foot reaching out in lower left.



And how do you know that the WHOLE chicken was really used? (I love this picture!)



In this case, total meal cost was around 600 Yuan – about $100.

My mouth is watering again just looking at all of this, and it was in fact the next days meal that was the most delicious.

QING DAO - PART VI

Numbers are very important in China. Our hotel in Beijing had not floor 4, 13, or 14. So doesn’t that make floor 16 the real floor 13 you may ask? Apparently not.
Six is especially lucky, so the best meal of this trip has been saved for part number VI.

On this day we were accompanied by a new set of friends and visited a new side of the Lao Shan mountains. It was a lovely day as clouds keeping the day cooler with dramatic patterns in the sky.



Passing by Pomegranite trees and tea fields as we hiked up the path:



We started the day with a traditional Chinese tea ceremony at a house high on a hill looking over the valley. The Chinese tea ceremony is much different from the more familiar (to me at least) Japanese ceremony. It is more social, with guests seated around a table in familiar conversation as one person prepares various types of tea with traditional tools. I have more detail on this I could add to a later post, but for now just a view of the table and a single cup of red tea from Lao Shan region.



And looking out towards a lake and then the ocean from the house



My dear wife posing under a goard vind that runs up the path to the house. Vegetables grown all over these lots for use by the locals.



In this setting we went to a restaurant by the ocean where once again the available stock of seafood greeted us at the door – fish and vegetables:



Clams, Oysters, Sea Urchins, Shrimp:



A famous local clam. We ate these in a previous meal. See the long foot extending from some.



Sea cucumbers. We didn't eat any this time, but a nice shot. Waling around this room was like being in an aquarium.



The meal that came out of this was a perfect ending to this visit. Although not as extravagant as some, the quality of ingredients was unsurpassed. Preparations brought out new flavors and textures to dishes I had had before, starting with a Tofu soup. As with all dishes on this day, ocean water was used to salt and bring extra flavor to this dish.



Mushroom soup with rice noodles. Same eggplant colored mushrooms collected from the mountains that I had on a previous day. Also a very meaty firm white mushroom. One or two other types as well.



Egg dish almost an orange color in real life from the freshest eggs gathered every morning, mixed with scallions.



Pork Belly. Meatier than before, less oily, fat still firm for exceptional artery clogging. Large chunks of belly in around 1 inch cubes. Served in some salty/slightly sweet sauce that made the whole dish just amazing.



Whole fish steamed



The seaweed based gelatin as seen in last meal. Even I enjoyed this one.



Green beans with peppers and pork



Whole crabs. How to eat with chopsticks? You don’t use them. Tear it apart with your hands and suck out the meat. Very meaty crabs with bodies full of white meat.



Some sea vegetable. Looks a little hairy, but nice and chewy and fresh ocean taste



The pink meat here looks like pork but its really the supporting structure of a jellyfish. Jellyfish don’t have bones, so I can’t call it jellyfish bones, but that’s kind of what it is. I couldn’t get enough of this. Like a combination of thin sliced pork with fish. Served with Grilled cabbage.



What a meal. What a week. Can’t wait to go back.

One parting shot as we drove off



And advice from a Bhuddist temple:



And now – after all that – I thought I really needed to hit the gym. Ate myself stuffed every day, but turns out I actually lost a few pound from the trip. A combination of relatively few carbs and lots of hiking I’d guess. Fortunately United Airlines also did its best to help me on the way to losing the weight I thought I had gained. Here is the “Braised chicken with Oyster sauce and black mushrooms and Chinese vegetables” that they served me on the flight home. You know, "Chinese vegetables" like the mini corn!



Yeah right, that’s Chinese food. Now I know better.

Great great report and thank you to whoever combined it all. Just wonderful photos and commentary. Thank you for this!!!