Also, eating: gyros, beaver burritos (like Oregon State beaver, not real beavers), onion blooms, doughboys (preferably free due to some connection my family has with the owners. I don’t understand it, but I don’t question it), RC cola (probably the only time of the year that I drink RC), curly fries, and ice cream from the Oregon Dairy Wives Association.
I’ve been a sinner by not attending the last few years due to grad school. So to honor this age-old tradition, I decided to go on a street food binge here in Beijing with Tanu and Kristin for the last two nights. I escaped with intact intestines last night, but we’ll see how things go tonight.
To start things out, Kristin, Tanu, and I returned to our favorite pot-stickers place in the little market in Walmart’s shadow. With our improved Mandarin skills, we found out with 99% certainty that the “vegetarian” stickers before were, well, may’ve had a bit of moo in it. or oink. we still need to learn the words for animals. But we did secure some delicious cabbage-filled pot stickers for our meat-hating friend.
Strolling through the market, we then found a stand that had a camel silhouette on the wall, the chefs wore little Aladdin beanies, and the bbq vent was in the shape of a middle-eastern dome. But there was also a picture of Mongolia, so I’m not sure what ambiance they were going for. Tanu and I ordered some skewers with what we only imagined was meat. The spices were delish, but the meat was pretty chewy and white, so Kristin tried some on Tanu’s 95% confidence that it must be a sea animal. When we asked our Asian Alladin, what it was, he hacked at his neck and mooed. Oops. Some things are better left unasked, I guess. (side note: we asked lab mates later, and we think it was tendon or some type of connective tissue. can check that off of my to-do list)
We found another stand that was frying flat tofu and dressing it with cilantro and sauce! While the lady cooked it up, however, we noticed a stench in the area that we told ourselves was of course not coming from her booth. However, the doubt led us to only eat a few bites before tossing it. (Didn’t toss cookies later though, so A-OK!).
Last stop was Walmart (we have an addiction) where I found the back side of a meat cart that I reported on earlier!:
preserved fish, duck, ?. I need to find out if these are things for people to eat, but it sure reminds me of rawhide for Bodri and Shep.
Now imagine if Mr. Croissant met Miss Fig Newton, fell in love, got married, and had babies. This is what they’d produce:
Lab mate says they’re a type of moon cake. I just know that the flaky dough rivals the crust of my mom’s pies.
Also, a fried batter thing (similar to hush puppy?) with shredded carrots!
why yes, that’s a journal article in the background that I’m reading!
After a long day of trying to find RNAi targets for my delivery system and a meeting at a Chinese military research facility (sounds more exciting/potentially scandalous than it actually was, but may be worth a post), we went to the Old Summer Palace (adjacent to the Summer Palace) (you guessed it, the Anglo-French forces torched this place too in 1860).
It turns out that there was a lantern festival, so I was able to get a bit of the fair atmosphere there. And eat more (of course).
More meat on sticks:
Tanu: “I can’t decide if it was a good idea for me to eat this.” We are still undecided as to the origin of the meat, or how thoroughly cooked it was. We are decided that we’ve had our fill of meat-on-stick.
And here's a decidedly yummy cross between frosted graham crackers and pound cake:
Cake: “I won’t give you food poisoning! …maybe….”
Finally, to round off this totally exciting post, I give you some shots of the lantern festival:
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