My First Chinese Wedding

I went to my first Chinese Wedding last week. It was more a wedding party than an actual reception. It was held in a hotel ballroom in Zhuji. There were a couple hundred people there to see the vice principle of my school get married. Me and my other foreign teacher friends were the only non-Chinese. There were many different acts during the party where friends and family got up on stage and gave a speech or sang a song. And of course there was lots of food. Check it out.

This is duck tongue. Yes, duck tongue. It was an appetizer. It was chewy and rubbery but once you bit off a piece it tasted kind of like duck. 

Close up, it really looks like a tongue.

Steamed and flavored dough. This was another appetizer. I'm not totally sure what it was, but my Chinese friend told me it was dough. It was steamed and marinated in some sauce. Tasted pretty good.

Fried prawn. Full shell on, fried in some kind of garlic sauce with sesame seeds. The shells are so soft you can eat the prawns whole without peeling them, even the heads. One of my favorite dishes from the night. 

LOBSTER. I've had a lot of crab in China, but this was my first time eating Lobster. Really soft and tender. People at my table didn't seem to crazy about it, so I ate about half the dish. Another one of my favorites

MUTTON. Always one of my favorite dishes in China. Usually I have it fresh off a BBQ, which is the best way to cook it in my opinion. This was cooked in a kitchen so it didn't have the same flavor you get from a BBQ. Still very juicy and tender.

Money Shot. Falling off the bone good. Pistachios on my plate were a snack. I had a couple.

This is a fish soup I believe. It didn't eat it so I have no comment. Sorry.

A whole fish. Bones and all, everybody picks away at it with their chopsticks. Very soft and tasty. Cooked in a ginger sauce.

I'm not sure what this dish is called but it's a very popular dish in China. There are fish balls, prawns and pork wrapped in thin tofu "paper". The fish balls are basically just fish meat rolled up into a meatball. The pork tofu wrap is really delicious.

 Seared beef. Soft and chewy and really tasty.

Here is a tofu soup. I didn't try it but Chinese people love it.

Here we all are in the middle of dinner. Gnawing away at our food, drinking, laughing, chatting, but mostly eating.

I went to Suzhou this past weekend. Suzhou is a small city outside of Shanghai with a bright nightlife and international cuisine. While walking the streets for dinner one night my friends and I stumbled across a Halal-Chinese restaurant. Since one of my friends is Muslim we decided to check it out. It was empty when we walked in but people started to show up once we were in there. Maybe foreigners attract customers? I definitely feel "famous" as a white male here, but that's another topic for another post. Anyways, overall the food was very good. tasted just like normal Chinese food I've had but obviously there wasn't any pork. The owner was really hospitable and it seemed like he lived and worked there with his family and his brother's family as well. Check out the photos.

Outside of the restaurant. Notice the Arab text above the Chinese.

Empty but clean.

The wives cooking in the kitchen.

Owner and husband doing some of the cooking as well.

Small restaurants like these usually have photo's of the dishes on the walls. You just point to what you want.

Beef stock soup. Complimentary with our meals. Salty and warm. Delicious

Sauteed beef and spring onions. 

This was some kind of spiced ground beef. Interesting flavor, very good.

Vegetable fried rice.

Here is a video from the streets of Suzhou. That's mutton leg.

Chinese Breakfast Burrito

One of my favorite street snacks in China is their breakfast burrito. A lot of street stands sell it, but very few do it right and with consistency. This guy is one of the few. He is located in Zhuji about a block away from my school. It is a quick and cheap breakfast to grab if I am in a hurry. Only costs 7 RMB ~$1. The burrito tastes sweet and soft like a crepe. Inside you can get any combination of chicken, Chinese hot dog, egg, lettuce, garlic, pickled cabbage, chives, dried seaweed, and cilantro. Once your burrito is filled you can get a sweet bean paste or hot chili paste and a crunchy waffle thingy. Super delicious, warm like blanket, lots of great flavors, soft crepe on the outside, and crunchy waffle on the inside. You really can't go wrong with it. Check out some of the photos.

Here's my guy. He starts by throwing a glob of raw dough from a large bucket onto a hot metal top and spreading it around in a perfect circle. 

Steam rises as he spreads the dough. My mouth begins to water.

Here are the eggs. He cracks the egg onto the dough as soon as it's spread out. He knows I like 2 eggs.

Next step is the meat. I always get the marinated chicken. 

Here are all the ingredients, or where they should be. He was running low on the cabbage, garlic, cilantro, and seaweed but this is where they would be. The tin bucket with the dark sauce is the sweet bean pasta, so delicious.

As he spreads the eggs around here are the crunchy waffle things. Not sure what they're called but they have a great crunch.

Quick video of his technique. He can make a full one in about 45 seconds. 

Final product in a bag on my desk :)

Here it is in all of its glory. Perfectly brown on the outside.

About to take the first bite. Cilantro, green onions, crunchy waffle and chicken all in eye's sight. Mmmmm.

Western Cooking Class

Today I had the great pleasure of teaching Tianma International School's first Western Cooking Class, along with my fellow foreign teacher Sharon. We taught our students how to cook pasta and tomato sauce and how to make salad. One sauce was vegetable based and the other was meat. The students were from grade 5 to 7. This was my first time teaching a cooking class and it was a lot of fun. I love food and love to cook so the opportunity to share my hobby with my students was a pleasure. Everyone had a great time and my students loved the food. Check out some of our pictures.

Kitchen is hot! Bacon is frying for the sauce, pasta is steaming, and vegetables are being chopped. 

Everyone posed for a quick photo, except for King, he's the one too focused on frying the bacon. Smart man.

Here's Sharon's table almost done cooking. 

Here everyone is eating the pasta. Kelly is the Chinese teacher saying that my pasta is BETTER than Sharon's, that's right. At the end of the video the kids run over and maul the pasta bowl.

King serving the students. He is a natural leader. Smart and rebellious as well.

Salad! They were sceptical at first but once they tried it they couldn't stop. Here they are scraping the bowl for all the green. A few third graders smelled the goods and snuck upstairs for our food too. 

Bill and David enjoying their pasta. Seventh grade students.

Lanky and Anna mid-bite.

Eva and Mike happy with their salad. They are some of the third graders that snuck into the class.  They're both extremely smart and their English is at about an 8th grade level. Angels.

Coco didn't seem to happy being documented eating her food. She is a teaching intern.

I haven't posted here in a while, then again I haven't done anything interesting during that time either. However, I did manage to snap a picture of something interesting and funny on my way to work.

3 men on a motor bike on the way to work. A morning commute can be tough sometimes.

An old photo somewhat related. This was taken back in August during my visit to Chongqing. This is what all the train stations in China look like during the National Holiday. It was about 90 degrees fahrenheit that day, super humid and our train was delayed.

I took an interesting trip to the city of Yiwu this past weekend. Yiwu is about 30 minutes from my town of Zhuji and is well known for its large Arab population and culture. The reason for this is because Middle Eastern business-men have migrated there for international trade. This effect has created a strong Arab culture with many Arab restaurants in the city, many of which are concentrated in downtown Yiwu.

Walking through downtown Yiwu is unlike anything I have experienced in China. There are more Arabs in the streets than Chinese, there is an abundance of middle-eastern restaurants, hookah bars, and more street BBQ than you can shake a skewer at. You really feel like you are not in China anymore, but instead in some kind of Arab-Asian fusion world. My girlfriend is Turkish and cooks amazing authentic Turkish/Middle Eastern food, so you can imagine how excited I was to try the food in Yiwu. 

Here are a few photos and videos I captured. Notice the amount of meat and smoke from the street BBQ in the videos. What was interesting is that all these restaurants cooked all their meat outside on their own BBQ's, instead of in the kitchen. This helps with all the smoke created from the grilling and is a great way to advertise a restaurant's meat.

Turkish Restaurant.

Colorful street stand selling a variety of beans, grains, and dried meats.

Our dinner. Meat was very tender. Yogurt was very tangy. Bread was a bit salty and greasy.

Here I am at the Grand Buddha statue in Leshan, Sichuan, China. I visited it during the National Day holiday, China's Independence day.

The site was truly spectacular and mind blowing. The size of this statue is incredible and the amount of tourists were of the same magnitude. For those that don't know, National Day in China is one of the biggest holidays and many people get up to a week vacation. The Grand Buddha is a popular site to visit during this time, and EVERYONE goes. This was the first time I was able to grasp just how many people live in China. The tourists in the video are 99% Chinese. I mean there were literally thousands of people lining up to see the statue either by boat or to walk to the bottom. In the video you see a line of people on the side of the rock. They are walking down to the bottom of the statue. That line of people continues back for A WHILE. If you don't want to wait in line then your only view is from the top, as I had in the video. Still a great scene, but man did these people really want to get to the bottom of this statue. Some of them were waiting 4 hours! I get that Buddha is their religious leader and there is a lot I don't understand about Buddhism, but they must really love this guy.

Overall it was an awesome experience. I hope my video captures the moment well.