平遥非常， 特别，超赞 极了！

大家晚上好。 我今天早上从平遥到北京回来， 跟我的新朋友。 我们在平遥两天。 我们坐火车到介休看看王家大院， 让后坐汽车到平遥成。 平遥的天气很不干净。 也特别冷。 但是平遥的古城很有意思。 有很多买的东西。 我们的hostel是非常超赞！ 跟张艺谋的电影一样。 星期七我们买很多东西， 让后坐汽车到太原。 太原很大。 我们吃点晚饭， 让后座火车到北京。

The End.

If Mike Davis can call LA an "urban galaxy"...

...then Beijing must be an urban solar system, and the Forbidden City the unshakable heart at its epicenter.

With more than half my time here gone already, it's high time to take stock. This blog has pretty much been shameless posturing intended to make you salivate and hop the next Beijing-bound flight to partake in the orgasmic culinary cornucopia that is Asia. I'm dismayed by how much it pales in comparison to the work of LA Weekly journalist Jonathan Gold, my personal hero and the first food writer in history to win a Pulitzer. Those who follow my other blogs are probably sick of my love-worship of Mr. Gold, suffice to say that food-porn and weekend play-by-plays alone does not a blog make.

Last week I counted up my remaining weekends and panicked. So much to do and re-do, and so little time. I'm not even making good on my vow to stuff myself silly with Xinjiang food. So I proceeded to plan a day-trip to Tianjin (more later), a weekend in Pingyao. Next weekend is shot as I'll be dutifully taking my uncle around (but maybe I can catch the dawn flag-raising in Tian-an-men and finally get a glimpse of the mummified Chairman. Then one more precious weekend free before my family gets here. I feel like I'm going at a breakneck pace to fit in everything I possibly can, and with the vague notion that I can't afford to stop for a even a moment.

I've come up with a two-liner to deftly deflect any and all inquiries of "How's Beijing?" Biting back a retort to just "read my blog," I tell them, "Beijing is huge. And full of good food." This satisfies most people. If they push for more, I throw another bone: "The air is the suck." This indeed is Beijing in a nutshell for me.

I'm almost afraid to dig deeper for fear of what I'll find. First, the city: proud, ambitious, unapologetic, inconvenient. But also uncompromising, heterogeneous, cohesive and hopeful. And above all, a city of undeniable character. I feel I'm just getting to know it, just getting to develop things I crave about it, and it will be just moments before I have to leave.

Then, the food: abundant, piecemeal, delirious. If I had a nickel for every time the word "delicious" made it into my blog...

The people. They fall into at least two categories, of course: expats and locals. There might be a specially small contingent of huaren (overseas Chinese) like me, people thinking they're coming back to the "Motherland" realizing they'd never felt less Chinese in their lives. For the expats, I feel an unspoken bond of family, strange citizens in a stranger world, whether I've spoken to them or not, whether they're just here for fun, have an unhealthy interest in Asian things, or genuinely love the city. With the locals, I'm finally feeling accepted as a friend (rather than treated just with courtesy and curiosity), though I know I'll never actually be one of them as long as my language skills are on par with those of a 5 year old child. Nor would I want to be. Coming to Beijing has been a great exercise in confirming my Americanness, and in so many ways I'll be glad to be back in the States.

Anyway, all I know is I can't leave it at this. I'll be coming back soon, for sure, for Xinjiang, and Tibet, and Haerbin (from which my slight and gently long-fingered new hairdresser hails). Not for the Olympics, I don't think - I'll pass on the hysteria, thankyouverymuch.
_______________________

That said, where did I leave off? Starting from two weekends ago:

• Climbed some obscure mountain with the teammates
• Got a haircut in Wudaokou.
  
• Had western style brunch - twice, once at Lush and once at Kro's Nest (the first was better).
  
• Visited Capital Museum. Got very dizzy in the spiraling tunnel of the special exhibits structure.
• Had a sundae at McDonald's that was way too sweet.
• Compared the Russian food at Traktirr Pushkin to that of my darling Kiev. (Both delicious - Kiev wins because of the opera singers).
• Went karaokeing, FINALLY. It was a karaoke palace, really - a place called Party World with miles of marble halls and ropes of crystal hanging from chandeliers. Full buffet. Oh, it was rich.
• Visited Tianjin: Pleasant train ride, Port Authority Architecture (lots of stodgy old European Buildings), Kiessling's Bakery,mediocre Goubuli dumplings, buying lots of things at the Foreign Goods Market. Missing the famed Antiques Market by just a half hour, but then proceeding to buy more artsy shit I don't need at the old gucheng (Ancient Culture Street). Suffering a 2.5 hour bus ride back to Beijing.
• Partying it up at Vic's for the first time, severely damaging my eardrums, shimmying alternatively to techno and hip-hop, and discovering this amazing local drink that mixes sweet green tea with whiskey.
• Finally checking out the Harvard-like hallowed grounds of Beida University.
• Dining at Middle 8th Restaurant, deciding I'll never get sick of the tender veal grilled to perfection, nor the variety of fruity teas.
• A Beijing-style Thanksgiving dinner that put many a previous feast to shame: homemade dumplings stuffed with shrimp, egg, jiucai (chives) and copious amounts of dill, roast turkey for which our host trekked 3.5 hours to some Texas barbeque place near Silk Market to procure, and various spicy localized dishes.

All right, I think I'm done for now.

"So good-ah, so good-ah!"

Racks of lamb flown in daily direct from Xinjiang.

Tonight was probably one of the best meals of my life. Or at least, in the last few weeks. Which is saying a lot, because I've sure had my share of good food. Tonight it was the Yisila Restaurant, the Xinjiang provincial office associated restaurant, with a fun-loving group of friends with whom I play foosball (incredibly poorly, I might add) after lunch often.

OMG.

I kind of wish I'd been born Uigher or something, so I could eat this kind of delicious food every day. Started with delightfully light, sweet, and tangy sheep's milk yogurt garnished with nuts and seeds.

Then, the very typical Uigher dish da pan ji, literally "big plate chicken," a huge dish of juicy chicken marinated in some magical sauce, over strips of handmade flat noodles.

Next came the yangrou chuar, or grilled lamb skewers dusted in spices, and two "sheep legs," which were pretty much just the bones with some meat clinging to the ends of it. There was a delicious tomato-based beef soup that was thickened with, I think, potatoes, very hearty and flavorful.

And then, the star of the evening, la tiao zi, or hand-pulled noodles. To look at them is not to be impressed, because it just looked like ordinary linguini in a bell pepper and onion sauce. But oh, oh, to slurp them up and chew them is heaven. There is nothing like fresh, hand-made noodles, so chewy and delectable, so unlike anything I've ever had in the States.

I want to cry to think that I won't be able to get this once I leave. I seriously consider taking one of the chefs home with me so I can start a Xinjiang-style restaurant in the states.

On the way home, Armin looked at how silly I was being and he's like, man, you don't need to drink at all, do you, you just eat food and it has the same effect as getting drunk. I was like, yup. I'm high on life, baby, high on life. :-P

"Food is in China, Flavor is in Sichuan"

(Clockwise from top) Marinated port short-ribs, sauteed julienned potatoes, spicy chicken.

"You are so lady today!" That is what a told me the other day, when I walked up in a kneelength, fishnets, and the only pair of non-frumpy shoes I brought with me to Beijing. I took it as a compliment =D.

We went to this newly remodeled Sichuan restaurant in Wudaokou. Yumm. Refrained from ordering the most mouth-numbingly spicy dishes, but there was still liberal use of this strange spice I'd never encountered before in my life: huajiao, or "flower pepper." Named as such because it looks like a tiny flower. I don't really like it, I decided, because it kind of numbs your membranes. Anyway, here's a pretty traditional Sichuan dish that comes in a gigantic basin (this picture doesn't do it justice) filled with oil, not soup as I originally thought! Submerged in the oil is a whole, tender, delicious fish, bean sprouts, chilis, and other tasty things.

And some other side dishes: leafy greens and sauteed lettuce hearts garnished with 1000-year-old eggs.

One happy bunch:

Good Things Come from Xinjiang.

Last Saturday a coworker, whose dad is a chef, cooked us this amazing spread of traditional Beijing and Sichuan dishes while we waited (for 3.5 hours!) and played Mafia. I can't get over how awesome everyone here seems to be at cooking:

The Feast

Marinated meatballs over napa cabbage

We went to dinner at Hatsune, an expensive and mediocre Japanese restaurant in Chaoyang, where we ordered a full 1.8 L of cold sake (plus a couple bottles of warm sake) and Armin and Aki proceeded to finish the whole thing. Amazing. Sandy, Joe and I helped a bit (a tiny bit).

"The Butterfly Roll":
Snow crab and tempura shrimp inside, shrimp, unagi and avocado on top.

We then headed to Bar Blu in Sanlitun, but it was "closed for reasons we cannot control (we hope to reopen in the near future)." Very cryptic.

So at that moment Aki sees a guy he recognizes. Turns out he's part of this band called the Xinjiang Boys who play flamenco, Gypsy Kings covers, and traditional Uigher music with a twist. They were heading to a bar called Cheers (again, packed to the gills with foreigners, but quite a few locals too) to perform. I'd actually heard about these guys before I came to Beijing - a friend of a friend was a big fan and probably their first groupie. Turns out they they were AMAZING. The lead guitarist was especially talented, with such masterful control of his classical guitar that I wanted to weep. Before I ruined my camera I managed to capture a few short clips:





Unfortunately they don't have a website, nor do they even have a recorded CD. I am seriously considering, if I can find a small recording studio here for relatively cheap, just paying for them to get some of their stuff recorded so I can take their wonderful music home with me to the States - it would be the best souvenir ever.

Anyway, so now the Xinjiang Boys, along with Chinese-Muslim architecture, lamb skewers and hand-pulled noodles, rank among the Many Wonderful Things That Come From Xinjiang Province.

Sunday I went with a coworker friend to 798 Art District, this gigantic area filled with cutting-edge (and sometimes insipid) galleries, cafes, and bizarro sculptures. Contemporary artists in China seem to have quite the obsession with the Cultural Revolution, Communism, and the Cult of Mao. I guess I can't blame them, given the circumstances. Here's some pics we snapped with my friend's camera:

Barbecued sliced beef and broccoli at some 1970s-style restaurant in 798

Pepper Chicken, w/ String Beans in the background

Bizarre but cool sculpture

A bad week, electronically.

Prepare for at least 3 weeks of pictureless entries because I have finally ruined my camera, my trusty little digital camera, a good 10 years old, passed down from my dad to my brother to my dad again, and finally to me, and built like a tank (or so I thought).

I was holding an open drink on the street, looking for a friend, when I saw a beggar on the side of the road. Normally I don't quite trust them (esp in China) but he seemed like he really needed the help, so I stopped. I had my camera dangling from one elbow, my drink wedged in the other, and was fumbling around in my purse for Y5. As I bent down to give it to him, my drink of course spilled over everything, including my camera. And then, I was stupid enough to power it on before it dried. So now it's quite finished.

And then on Monday, I dropped my laptop. The screen is toast. But the hard drive seems to be ok. So, wangqianzou.

This Week in Food: Halloween + A Little Chinglish

Monday: Ganguoju again, for Guizhou-style hotpot (tomato-based w/ a whole catfish) again. They call it suantang yu (sour soup fish). I am an addict. No pictures, sorry.

Tuesday: Korean food at this place that's supposed to be the most popular in Wudaokou, but it turned out to be pretty mediocre. Who ever heard of kimchi fried rice with no SPAM in it? Or bibimbap with no bulgogi? It looks prettier than it tasted:

And the aftermath: the inevitable multitude of small bowls that accompany any Korean dinner:

Wednesday: Company Halloween party (yay ham skewers, fried chicken wings, and rice balls with faces!).

Followed by dinner at the illustrious Kro's Nest Pizza, a smoke-filled joint, equal parts local and expat, with gargantuan but scrumptious pies (check out the large below).

And yes, a "shit-load of pepperoni" and a "shit-load of cheese":

Tonight: Fusion-style hotpot at one of the most swankily decorated restaurants I've been to yet. Check out the shine:

Here is the basic equipment: individual hotpot (so genius!), bowl for letting your soup cool, plate for eating just-cooked meats and veggies, saucer of delectable sesame seed sauce, and chopsticks with natural-chic stone chopstick rest:

The meats:

The veggies:

"Balls Combination":

And my favorite part, the menu that makes absolutely no sense in English (Chinglish lives on in Beijing, my friends!):