Beijing Cuisine

As the capital of China, Beijing has a long and deep history of establishing a decent cuisine for the whole culture. Beijing cuisine, also know as Jing cuisine, is influenced by multiple cuisines from all over China. The origin of Jing cuisine was the “Emperor’s Kitchen,” the cooking kitchen inside the Forbidden City and served emperor and his family. So, influenced by “Emperor’s Kitchen”, Jing cuisine stands for the most influential and honorable cuisine in China. Beijing cuisine serves a very broad dishes, including pastry, snacks, and roast meat. One of the most typical dishes of Beijing cuisine is Peking Duck, or Beijing Roast Duck.

Peking duck was invented during Ming dynasty by Han people. Fruit tree woods are used to roast the duck, in order to get the best taste. The perfect Peking duck has the red roasted skin, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The most traditional method of eating Peking duck would be eating it with Tian mian sauce, Chinese pancake, cucumber strip and spring onion strip. To make a proper roll, using the Chinese pancake, dip the tian mian sauce in the middle from side to side, then put the sliced duck meat, strips on the top of tian mian sauce as a line, then roll them altogether. Finally eat them like a burrito. Peking duck has became most typical Chinese food and attract people all over the world to enjoy it.

Another famous dish of Beijing cuisine must be Zhajiangmian, soy bean noodles with thick gravy. Zhajiangmian is one of the cheapest dishes inside Beijing cuisine. Almost every small restaurant in Bejing are serving it. Also, carrot, cucumber and green onion slices are common toppings of the Zhajiangmian. With varieties of dishes and taste, Beijing cuisine provided people with a broad food culture and attracts more and more people travel to China for these delicious food.

Some Other Cuisines

The reason China has so many different types of cuisines because of location, customs, weather and nature. Fujian cuisine is mainly using seafood and pickles, but even the same cuisine there are still difference. Fuzhou is a city in Fujian province, the taste mixed with sweet, sour. The south part of Fujian, we call it Min Nan, it different from Fuzhou cuisine, its more salty and more herbs for medical functions.

Xiang Cuisine which is from Hunan province. Its also famous for spicy food, but different from Sichuan cuisine, its more focus on burning hot and sour than "Ma"(Numbness). Because of the location of Hunan, weather in Hunan is humid and mild climate, so they love to have some hot food to perspiration which can keep body more balance during humid weather.

Anhui cuisine has around 1000 years, originally from farmers in that area where names Huizhou city. Anhui cuisine has a remarkable plate called "Dong Po Prok" which is a kind of pork made by soy sauce, but it is not easy by just using soy sauce, there are a lot of things that needs to work on.

Jin Noodles

Jin, also known as Shanxi province, in the middle of China, is well known for its special cuisine specially noodles. Since Shanxi province has a history of two thousand years of making dishes from flour and dough, noodles in Shanxi stand for a traditional food in China and also represents the most famous dishes in Shanxi. There are a lot of types of noodles in Shanxi, including biangbiang noodle, saozi noodle, helao noodle, men noodle and daoxiao noodle, etc. Among all of the noodles, the four most famous are known as shaved noodles, pulled noodles, zhuan pan noodle, and chopped noodles. Also, the common toppings of noodles are potato, mushroom, celery, carrot and ground pork, beef or lamb.

It’s a culture value that people live in Shanxi province have a common habit that eating noodles as breakfast. Eating noodles become a tradition for people in Shanxi. When you travel to Shanxi, you will feel satisfied and excited because you can choose noodles to be cold or hot, thin or thick, stir-fried, deep-fried, boiled, soup-combined, or steamed. During the summer, people are willing to order a cold noodle and for summer, a bowl of noodle with soup would be a great choice.

In addition, there is a famous noodle restaurant called “Shanxi Noodle Museum” in Taiyuan, the capital city of Shanxi province. Wood tables and chairs were chose to decorate the restaurant, establishing a traditional style back to 1970s in China. In this restaurant, there are 280 types of noodles are served! Also, the most unique thing is the restaurant provided people with a lot of noodle performances: chefs give performances about how they make noodles and how thin they can cut the noodles. The most unbelievable is that the thinnest noodle the chef cut is even thinner than a hair!!

Street Food

Street food is a very popular snack style food now days. It has many different varieties based on location, weather, time frame, and people needs. Most of them are quick, but not like a “fast food” it balances nutrition and taste. You can have them maybe for breakfast or lunch maybe dinner or whenever you need some energy, or just a little bit boring, or it just a pure enjoyable thing that makes you happy. Here let me introduce few well known street food examples to see if any of those caught your interests.

Jian Bing Guo Zi is a warp liked food, it has half crispy warp made of corn flower mixed with green bean flower and regular flower, and inner side has egg warp to enhance the flavor, inside warp you can put anything you want, usually lettuce, sausage, and some crispy pork with some seaweed, and “Tian Mian” sauce, plus some spicy sauce usually is a standard. But it is not only limited to just that, me and my friend used to own a little store to make and sell those in Ann Arbor, MI. We had a great time to introduce it to American people, and even the mayor of Ann Arbor enjoyed it, and liked it on Facebook.

Octopus ball is originally from Japan, however now it is very popular in China, and localized, This looks like a meat ball, but it taste not just a octopus meat ball, it has different layers when you give a bite, combine with the sauce and crispy fish. There is a night market in Taiwan which is one of the most famous street food, it has hundreds of boots to make all different find of street snacks, it is a must go place for dainty snack lovers.

For me, the most enjoyable time would be at late night, different than U.S, in China even 3 or 4 am in the morning you can still get some great food, like those barbecued chicken on the stick, or beef on the stick or lamb or fish, anything you can think of, grab a beer and think about a new journey of your life.

Huaiyang(Jiangsu) Cuisine

Huaiyang cuisine or we call it jiangsu cuisine, is very popular in the lower reach of the yangtze River, freshness of the materials is the most recognizable as Huaiyang cuisine.Its carving techniques are delicate, of which the melon carving technique is especially well known. Cooking techniques consist of stewing, braising, roasting, simmering, etc. I born in Jiangsu, and lived there for more than 10 years, but I can still remember every single delicious food that I had. For breakfast, “Shao Mai” is the most remarkable breakfast thing in my life. it has a ultra thin warp clear white looking, and wrapped sticky rice with soy sauce flavor, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and salted pork or any kind of meat. I never felt boring when I had it as a daily breakfast.

Since the seasons vary in climate considerably in Jiangsu, the cuisine also varies throughout the year. If the flavor is strong, it isn't too heavy; if light, not too bland. The photo is showing another my favorite food called Egg-Jiaozi, different from traditional Jiaozi, the outside warp is made by egg. It not only enrich the tender of the taste, but also giving the fantastic jiaozi an additional flavor.

There is a last but not least thing that I really want mentioned is that Smelly Fried Tofu, it is a very popular food in China, and it has many different versions of it based on locations. However, Jiangsu’s is the least bad smell one. I know most of American people wouldn't like Durian, or maybe never even heard of it. Durian smells terrible, honestly I hate it, and Smelly Fried Tofu works same way, they smell bad, but taste great. soaked into special sauce plus green onion and Chinese parsley makes it the most unforgettable dish in Jiangsu cuisine.

Sichuan Cuisine

Chuan(Sichuan) cuisine’s signature is spicy and pungent flavor, known as Szechuan cuisine. It is one of the most famous spicy food in the world. Sichuan cuisine prolific of tastes, emphasizes on use of all different kinds of paper and chili to make the spicy circling in mouth and never fails. Besides spicy, garlic, ginger, green onion, basile are also used during in cooking process.

Blazing colors are usually a sign of Chuan cuisine, red, green are the most used color in Chuan cuisine. Chuan cuisine is never a boring cuisine, based on the excitement and burning of the mouth, it is too hot to stop, and if you had bland Chuan food before, I would strongly suggest that you should stop go to those Americanized Szechuan style resturant, unless they have a Chinese version menu hiding from you.

There is a special type of spicy in Chuan cuisine, we call it “Ma”, numbness sensation is the closest feeling that I can think of. Different that burning hot, Ma is more unique and less tearing part, it wont last long, and wont let you feel that you might need a firefighter to stop the fire in your mouth.

Speak of Chuan cuisine, most Chinese people would think of hot-pot, it is a soup based pot that can be spicy or not spicy, people put their food into the boiling hot-pot, and the flavor of the soup will melt into whatever you put in the pot, at the same time the pot will have the flavor of the food too. The signature of hot and non-hot hot-pot is called “Yuan Yang” hot-pot.

Double cooked pork is one of my favorite dish in Chuan cuisine, it uses same part of pork as bacon, but after cooked twice, the fat is less which means healthier, and enriches the flavor of spicy, numbness and Chinese onion’s unique taste.

Yue Cuisine

Yue Cuisine or Cantonese food which is the most influential Chinese food world widely. Most of Chinese food restaurant are owned by Cantonese people or Fujian people. So pretty much the Chinese food in United States are Yue Cuisine. Dim Sum is the most reputable Cantonese food. Different than Lu's cuisine, Yue is more focused on combination of different kind of food and mix them with the most tasty way to cook. The ingredients are widely selected, and they are all focus on make the main flavor unforgettable. There are more than 20 different ways to cook the food, steamed, fried, boiled, steamed, Chinese fried, fried, stewed, buckled, etc.. Most of the food are good for the warm weather.

Speak of Cantonese food, soup is the most remarkable thing in Yue cuisine. Over hundreds recipe of making different soup, all of them are health, nutritionist, and centralize the body balance. mixed with ancient Chinese herbs and dry goods, using animal chops adding unique flavor. To make a awesome soup, usually takes more than 5 hours, first need to boil water to remove the blood and oder from the chop/bone at the same time some herbs would help too, after the first boil, take all the essential part of the soup to re-boil again, and this time would leave it boil for several hours depends on the material.

Lu Cuisine

Lu is an abbreviation of Shandong Province, just like Chuan for Sichuan Province(Szechuan), Yue for Guangdong Province(Canton), Huaiyang(Su) for Jiangsu Province. Lu cuisine is the longest history cuisine in all Chinese cuisines. 2500 years ago, confucians' people started a goal of making fine and health cuisine. So the signature of Lu cuisine is fresh, crispy, umami, and salty. Shandong is located at lower Huang River with mild climate, and there are countless water resources just like Michigan, there are over 40 different kinds of eatable seafood, and over 20 different types of precious herbs so that's the reason why Lu's good at making fresh seafood, tofu, fruits, vegetables, fungus, animals, and dry goods.

Goat milk plus pork rib soup with cattail is one of the most famous dishes from Lu cuisine(Top image), and the other one is called "The number one Tofu" which combines the crispy of the cucumber and other vegetables with rich tofu flavor with ultra soft and tender taste, tofu melts in mouth, teeth can feel the crispy of the vegetables, all in sudden the impact of wonderful flavors burst into mouth.

An Overview of Chinese Food

There are many types of Chinese food depend on the areas. There are four majority Chinese food as known Lu, Yue, Chuan, Huaiyang(Su), more widely there are eight majority types: Lu, Yue, Chuan, Su,  Zhe, Ming, Xiang, Hui, also there are some other types such as, Beijing, Shanghai, Fujian, Jiangsu, and Northeast, Muslim, etc.. Pretty much different types of Chinese food are location/habit based, but there is a type of food called street food, and it appears everywhere in China, it is location based too, but it is different from those listed majority food. In this blog I will introduce them all to readers. First, lets talk about more about what is a real Chinese food. When we talk about a good Chinese food, usually not only just tastes good, but also it should looks appetite and smells delicious. Moreover, it will have some meaning of different plate, also the shape and nutrition of the food. So a decent Chinese food, will have a beautiful color combination, a scent of delicious with remarkable taste, at the same time it is a meaningful plate with a well designed pattern and good source of nutrition.