China Gets Real Part 4

 

My experience of the city was nice, too.  Mostly we ate.  Actually I miss Chinese food right now more than I think I ever missed Western food when I was in China.  Chinese food is superior.  That’s just how it is.  A list of things I ingested while in Lanzhou includes but is not limited to:

1. A bowl of the famous Lanzhou beef noodles, which Luke had mentioned probably twice a day, every day, for at least two weeks before we arrived.  They have Lanzhou style beef noodles at most Muslim restaurants, even in Zhuhai, but Luke says that it’s way better in Lanzhou because they use some secret ingredient.  And I’ve gotta say, it was delicious.  I could imagine eating this for lunch every day for a while and not getting sick of it.  And I didn’t even get any on my shirt. 
2. Lamb hotpot at a nice restaurant. They gave us a bowl of peanutty sauce and small dishes of various spices – crushed garlic, green onion, powdered tofu??, weird smelling stuff – to mix into the peanut sauce.  So then the food (lamb slices, leafy green vegetables, lots of tofu, stringy mushrooms, floppy rice noodle things) would go into the hotpot, then into the sauce.  Then into your mouth.
3. “Western style barbecue” (HAHA) at this restaurant that was confused about whether its décor was supposed to be German beer garden, or Elvis.  There was a buffet with all sorts of faux Western salads, squirmy-looking Chinese things, and fake-tasting cakes.  Then girls in aprons and came around to your table with huge skewers of roasted meat.  Festive.
4. Dumplings at Luke’s family’s apartment.  Standard but delicious.
5. Lamb stew at the same place.  They were going to make this to begin with, but Mama Li told them that Americans don’t eat soup in the summer when it’s hot (which I had told her, because it’s true, but not knowing she would use it to manipulate other people’s dinner plans).  After I cleared up the confusion – this is true, but I’m in China now, and I will in fact eat anything – they made it the second night. Luke is a lamb-eating monster and was so happy about this meal.  It was delicious but the apartment was already hot, and the soup is hot, and then you eat it and become hotter, and then after everyone’s finished they sit around fanning and wiping their faces and complaining about how hot it is, so…yeah.  I mean, that’s why we don’t eat soup in summer. 
6. Dinner at home made by Mama.  Rice, cucumbers and eggs, something else I can’t remember, and one of my all-time favorite Chinese dishes: fatty cubed pork in a clay pot with some sauce.  How’s that for a title? I don’t know what it’s really called.  It’s like bacon, but not as crispy, and in convenient bite-sized cubes, half of which are fat, and smothered in a delicious sauce.  LOVE.
7. Various snacks at a market by Luke’s home.  Thick squishy noodles with a spicy sauce, Muslim style lamb kabobs (which I got on my shirt, and my hair…), some hamburger-y sandwich thing, this disgusting fermented wheat soup thing, spicy squid on a stick, and the like.  Luke was out to find some guts but failed on this particular day.  Instead he got some stinky tofu for himself – I tried a piece the size of a pea and thought it was…stinky. 
8. This interesting tea at a café in a park.  It was a huge mug with dates, rocks of sugar, flowers, and dragon’s eye I think? that all sat in the mug as you drank the tea.  A tea “party”!
9. Hotpot with Mama at a different restaurant.  Same awesome peanut sauce, but this time with lotus root and meatballs in addition to the leafy veggies, many varieties of mushrooms, and wide jiggly noodles.  Oh, and fake Tang-like orange juice to drink. 
10. More lamb kabobs, and some yummy flatbread, at a cheapie place one night after Luke and I spent hours alone (together) at a bar.  In China there is always somewhere to get a good snack.  None of this 24-hour convenience store chips-and-a-coke bullshit.  If you’re walking home drunk at 1 AM and you need some food, you always know there’s gonna be a guy with a grill waiting to provide you with a meal that costs about $2 and 3 minutes.  If there are tables, they’ll be dirty, and if there are seats, they’ll be stools, and if there are napkins, they’ll be on a roll, and you sit down clumsily, not minding about who can see up your skirt and how droopy your eyes look, and eat meat off a stick while your partner has another beer, and bicker about who has to eat the last one, and toss the sticks on the table and take a flatbread to go, and put your arm around your guy as you amble home, lazy hips swinging in unison, down littered back roads that feel safe.