Food

Here's a lunch we ordered at the small fishing village on Dongqian Lake. The cool thing about restaurants in these small towns (or maybe in toursity places--I couldn't quite pin down Maggie on it) is that, too order, you go through the kitchen to a pantry with all the vegetables and meats and still live fishies and such on display and just choose which you want. Counterclockwise from left, we have some sort of green cooked with garlic and chicken broth; cauliflour stir fried with some carrots and hot pepper (primarily ordered because I can say it in Chinese and I like to practice my words (which, by the way, I think makes Chinese people think of me as an amiable village idiot, because I go around repetaing "pear, pear, pear, pear; bamboo, bamboo, bamboo, bamboo" to myself)); boiled chicken with dipping sauce (which jeremy later threw all over the table); and fried potatoes. We also had an awesom fish head soup wit soft tofu and tons of ginger and green onions. 

this is a dinner assembled from the street carts. On the bottom is griddle cooked tofu and potatoes--i think of it as my chinese burger and fries. There's a delicious hoision-like sauce that the vendor squirts all over them. Top right is a "thousand layer  pancake" a word I can almost say in Chinese. It tastes like a cross between a tortilla and a naan-- lots of layers, but pleasantly chewy. It's cooked on a huge round griddleand the vendor cuts off pieces with a machete. Then she always wants to slather it with chili paste and I say "yi dian dian" ("a tiny bit," a ridiculously useful phrase I use all the time) and go home and burn my mouth off. Top left, I thought was flattened chicken on a stick, but turned out to be potatoes, so this was a very starchy meal. They're battered with something and deep fried them--out of this world. The same stand actually serves deep fried bannanas. And whole squid. Indiana state fair, take note.