This Weeks Treats

I've been a bad blogger! We've been very busy the last few days, but I'll have a proper entry later today.

In the meantime, here is a quick summary of the tasty bites we've had so far this week!

The top dish so far this week, was a super simple bowl of noodles. Miko and I jumped into a little hole-in-the-wall for a lunch of Shaanxi-style noodles. The restaurant, called Huanghe Shui Shaanxi Mianguan, had about 10 card tables with folding chairs and 5 large photos for their menu (although we suspect that there was a longer menu we couldn't read). I ordered a dish of rice noodles in a mild chili sauce with sprouts and bok choy. Miko had the "hamburgers" a classic Shaanxi dish of pork-filled round flat bread. Mine was the preferred dish until miko decided to pour various condiments over top to identify them all (luckily I was close to finished by then).

Favorite noodles so far

We went back to the Sichuan Government Provincial Restaurant with a larger group of 10 people so we could try more dishes. The most classic dish we ate was chili peppers and chicken. The chunks of chicken were fried then sauteed with a billion chilis, and peanuts. I managed two bites before my mouth was on fire.

Lots and lots of chilis with a little chicken

Last night we went to try Liu Family Courtyard House Restaurant - a Beijing style restaurant and another Jeffery Steingarten recommendation. The menu was disappointing and the food was just okay. We had a Peking duck just to test it out before our super duck dinner this Sunday. The most classic dish we had was sauteed soy bean pulp. It tasted slightly fermented, and just didn't appeal to me.

Soybean pulp

To satisfy a meat craving we headed to a Chinese Muslim restaurant (specifically from the Xinjiang province). It was very tasty which moved the Xinjiang government restaurant to the top of our "restaurants to try" list. I can't give the name of the restaurant as it was a recommendation of a friend of a friend, and was in a little ally somewhere without an English name. Here is what we ate.

A tomato based lamb stew, with pieces of bread around the edge to sop up the juice.

Hand rolled mini noodles with a brothy tomato sauce.

Fried tofu with black fungus

Bok choy with shitaki mushrooms