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Guilin culinary delights

April 12, 2011 by YinYang 7 Comments

If you visit China and end up eating at an average or below average restaurant, pretend the kitchen doesn’t exist. Do not venture back there. However, I was really happy to see this during lunch today. The restaurant exposes the kitchen to the full view of their patrons. I was told this restaurant chain is so popular, it has eight locations in Guilin.

Restaurant kitchen in Guilin
Restaurant kitchen in Guilin


China has so much excess labor, and I really wish the tourism industry and the government would encourage restaurants to do the extra work to strive for a level of cleanness above and beyond the “norm.” That would improve national health. That would also remove obstacles to those on the border-line of wanting to visit but concerned with food safety.

One of the most famous indigenous food in Guilin is the “guilin mifen.” Like the Vietnamese pho noodle soup, there is a special broth base. Various condiments and spices are added to the noodle. Below was mine – weighed in at “san liang” or 0.15 kg. I had it for lunch three days in a row. In my opinion, this is the best noodle of all I have eaten in my life.

Guilin mifen

In every Chinese city, there is bound to be at least some number of night markets with street vendors offering all kinds of food. Too bad I had just had a large dinner, otherwise I’d be gnawing on this roasted chicken. The aroma of the charcoal and the spices on the chicken is amazing.

Roasted chicken at a street vendor

China will always be a food heaven for me. Below was our lunch with my wife’s relatives while in Guilin. Food production in China is still not so “industrialized.” By that I mean meat and vegetables are usually local.

China is food heaven for me

The woman below is chopping up pepper with garlic (and probably some other ingredients).

Guilin lajiao (Guilin pepper)

[By the time this post goes live, I will be on my way to Beijing on a train. Stay tuned. I just wish there is more time to share everything I have captured with my camera.]

Filed Under: culture, Photos Tagged With: guilin, mifen

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Coma says

    April 12, 2011 at 2:19 am

    Hi, yinyang, 1 Jin = 0.5kg, 1 liang = 0.05kg, so 3 liang is 0.15kg.

    BTW, I love Guilin Mifen, too. 😛

  2. King Tubby says

    April 12, 2011 at 2:25 pm

    de Wang. I can always relate to a food post and this looks very good indeed, esp the variant of Vietnamese pho and the simple but far out crushed cucumber in vinegar and chili side dish. For my money, Sichuan grub is truly great, Fujian grub is really bloody awful and a good Hui resturaunt is hard to beat.

    I always enjoyed going to my local supermarket to buy rice. Turned on a bit of theatre for the supermarket staff by examining each type of rice in detail, knowing full well that I would go for the long grain southern variety rather than the round starchy northern stuff. Since I ran the kitchen, I always boiled rice and then drained it, rather than use a rice cooker which is one of the worst inventions of the 20th century.

  3. Rhan says

    April 12, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    “1 Jin = 0.5kg, 1 liang = 0.05kg,”

    Mean to say 1 jin = 10 liang, I always thought 1 jin = 16 liang, and not sure since when China change the measurement to 1 jin = 10 liang. And many that tour China used to complain that Chinese cheat them.

  4. tc says

    April 12, 2011 at 5:58 pm

    If the chefs all dressed in white, look clean, and wearing masks like those in the first picuture, it doesn’t matter how the food tastes to others, it always tastes great to me.

  5. Wukailong says

    April 13, 2011 at 5:12 am

    Guilin mifen is great. Of course I don’t know how genuine it is here in Beijing, but I practically lived on that for several weeks last year.

  6. Charles Liu says

    April 13, 2011 at 10:29 am

    The Noodle King chain in Guangzhou/Sz has open kitchen too. Seems to be a selling point since the public are becomming more aware of sanitation in restaurants.

  7. YinYang says

    April 18, 2011 at 4:51 pm

    thx for the correction.

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