Food in China

Food has often been an adventure on this trip even when we didn't mean for it to be.  Sometimes it gets a bit hard finding food that we can identify AND like.


Here in China it is no different.  The first day a  few of us went to the grocery market and bought some food for us to prepare in our apartment.  It's more of a challenge to shop when all the food labels are in Chinese and I understand no Chinese.  So we shopped by looking at the pictures.  We ended up with yogurt instead of milk, cream cheese instead of butter,  bread with corn baked into it, and very spicy ramen noodles.  But we were very excited to find a Papa John's pizza right next to the grocery market which we ate at more often than we should!

Joe by the Papa Johns

Sometimes we couldn't even get snacks right. One day we bought some potato chips off a snack cart.  When we tried them they were not regular flavored potato chips.  That's when we noticed the other side of the package!

This is what we saw when we bought them

But this is the other side and the real flavor!

Noodles are big here so the day Jenna and I went to the Zoo we bought some for lunch.  We had previously learned the leave out the curry spice and I am sure most Chinese think we eat such bland food.  

Jenna and her noodles at the Zoo

Another food sign at the Zoo.  I did not order "As closely linked as flesh and blood"

The day we went to the Great Wall we had Kevin, a friend of a friend, with us to help us out.  We told him we wanted to eat an authentic Chinese meal.  We would have never figured out how to eat there on our own.  He helped us get a table which involved finding someone about to leave and then taking taking over the table when they were done.  We told him we wanted to try a variety of dishes so he ordered fish, chicken, pork, tofu, vegetables, and soup.  First off we had to catch the fist.  Seth and Joe each took a turn with the net catching our fish.  In Asia we have found that restaurants bring out the dishes one at a time whenever they are ready.  No different here. The first dish brought out was something we hadn't ordered.  Kevin sent it back and a few minutes later it showed up on the table again.  This actually happened 3 times and the fourth time we just kept it.  When we asked for water, it was boiling water.  So it sat in our cups until one of the kids spilled.  Yes, we still spill our drinks.  I thought we might have outgrown that by now!  But to me the funniest part of the meal is when Seth was dishing up his second or third helping of Chicken and he exclaimed, "There's a head in here."  Seth is the wrong person to get the head, as he didn't eat it but continued to play with it for the rest of the meal.  Overall the food was very good and we were so glad to have Kevin help us!

Joe catching our dinner.  Kevin is behind Joe in the gray shirt.  

Seth got the head!

By far we had our most adventurous food experience at the outdoor market.  After walking up and down the whole market I decided I wasn't hungry for anything!  But Seth is always the one to want to try something.  He looked around and decided to try scorpions   They are already on a stick and then they cook them while you watch.  After eating the scorpions  Seth decided he wanted to try snake next.  He walked around and bargained with various vendors until he found one he was happy with.  After Seth and Rich had tried it and said it was pretty good, Sam and I decided to try it too.  It was hard to get a bite because the snake tough, but once I did get it bitten off it wasn't to bad, but one bite was enough for me!

Sam at the food market

Scorpions before being cooked

Seth eating scorpions

The white ones are the snakes before they are cooked

Now the snake is cooked and ready to eat.

Sam eating the snake

Proof that I tried the snake

Jenna found strawberries 

More food choices at the market

Want some?  

Jenna at the Market

What most of the menus look like.  

And then we saw this store across the street and noticed there is no food, but the store is full of shoes.
I guess something got lost in translation!