Chinese Snack: Tian Yu Ya Ge
Tian Yu Ya Ge (or 天语雅阁) is a special kind of snack bar in China that often masquerades as a coffee shop. Such is the case with Rich Coffee. When Chinese people say they are going to a tea house, though, this is usually what they mean. Everyone likes to hang out at these places on a hot summer day, because that 天语雅阁 moniker means there’s a self-help menu. All you can eat junk food like potato chips and sunflower seeds and all you can drink tea, coffee, and milk shakes.
While none of the food is that great (I went home with a stomachache every single time), it’s hard to resist the 25-yuan price. Yep, for only $4, you can sit in there all day (some of my friends really would stay there all day) and eat yourself sick. I think most Chinese customers go pretty light on the snacks and drinks, though, because the servers were always struggling to keep up with my requests. Hey, when a place is all you can eat, I don’t hold back.
Five Things to Take When Traveling to China
I’ve been meaning to write this one for a while but could never narrow the list down to just five things. Sure, there are a lot of items every traveler should take with them, but I wanted to highlight a few specifics that may get overlooked when going to China for the first time.
1. Tissues
You can certainly buy tissues in China (and buy them cheaply), but fresh off the airplane, it could be a while before you get to stock up. The last thing you want to do is go to the restroom tissueless. The majority of public restrooms in China do not have toilet paper. People are expected to bring their own.
2. Hand sanitizer
Another commodity missing from public restrooms is soap. While nicer restaurants will have a sink and soap dispenser, most of the restrooms you come across will not only lack any hand-cleaning liquids but are so scary and dirty, you can’t stop thinking about the germs crawling on you until you fully disinfect.
3. Hand fan
The best thing you can do if you’ll be doing most of your traveling in the summer is to take a handheld, electric fan. I was surprised by how humid China is. The major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing are particularly hot and miserable, and yet air-conditioning is not always readily available.
4. Printouts
Unless you are already fluent in Chinese, it’s going to be tough trying to explain to people where you want to go. While English is common, there are still many people—taxi drivers included—who don’t know much past hello. An easy cop-out is to print off the Chinese names of the places you plan to visit.
5. Granola bars
Also known as emergency food, these will help you when you can’t find anything else to eat that sounds good. I like Chinese food, but for new travelers, the noodles and fried rice can be really hard to stomach. Go for the high fiber granola bars, though, because… well… constipation isn’t fun to have on vacation.
Chinese Restaurant: Cai Gen Xiang
Another common restaurant that seems to hide on every back street of China is Cai Gen Xiang, or 菜根香. The name isn’t too important, though, because the red stripe gives it away. But be forewarned: this is one of the most unfriendly places for foreigners to eat. The menu is strictly Chinese, and you run a big risk in ordering something gross. The food certainly looks gross:
There were only two things on the menu I liked. The first, pictured above, is 腊肉鲜笋饭, or la rou xian sun fan. I could never remember the whole name, so I would just say, “Wo yao la rou nei ge nei ge nei ge…” and they’d know the rest. It’s a pot with rice, potatoes, bamboo, green vegetables, mushrooms, and preserved meat. Hey, it’s actually good! The other thing I liked to order was 狮子头 (shi zi tou, meaning lion’s head). I don’t have a picture of that one, but it’s a ball of pork in a soup with green vegetables.
I know venturing into unknown Chinese restaurants can be a bit scary, but if you’re daring enough to try something new, look for the red stripe!
American Restaurant Chains in China
Pizza Hut
Yuck, yuck, yuck. Pizza Hut gives Chinese people the wrong impression about pizza. It’s gross, overpriced, and the menu is misleading. That delicious bacon pizza you saw? Well, it doesn’t exist, but here’s a disgusting alternative! Their pizzas have strange toppings (you can’t even get a plain pepperoni), and they go super sparingly on the tomato sauce.
Papa John’s
Now this is pizza done right. I’ve said it time and time again that Papa John’s is the best pizza in China. While the prices are comparably expensive to Pizza Hut, the pizza is at least good and tastes every bit like pizza back in the US. Regular pepperoni pizza is a lifesaver! A half-and-half pizza with that and their garden pizza is mmmm mmmmmmmm.
McDonald’s
Maybe it’s all in my head, but the hamburgers in China taste… different. Still, McDonald’s is usually the restaurant foreigners fall back on when they need some familiarity. The fries are identical, they serve Coke, and the chicken sandwiches are actually better in China. I like their breakfast menu, too, but they shut down breakfast way too early.
KFC
KFC is the cream of the crop in China. This place is so popular and is always busy. That’s what happens when you have the best chicken sandwiches in the world. It’s not as easy to order in KFC as it is in McDonald’s, however, since, by default, a meal comes with orange juice and a cup of corn instead of soda and fries. Oh, and their coffee sucks, too.
Burger King
I eat at Burger King almost every time I go to Shanghai, because good hamburgers are hard to come by in China. Burger King has good burgers. They don’t tamper with the flavor in the move from the US to China. As far as I can tell, the burgers are the same. Their fries, on the other hand, don’t taste any better than what’s available at KFC.
Subway
Another commodity that’s rare in China is a decent turkey sandwich. That’s where Subway comes in. The menu and ingredients are pretty much the same, but the portions… oh, how the portions need help. They are always so stingy with the toppings, carefully placing only two or three pieces of every vegetable on your sandwich.
Chinese Restaurant: Gil Wonton
Gil Wonton is a chain of wonton shops that’s easy to miss, because it’s always a small sliver of a building crammed in between a bunch of other stores. I wouldn’t say they have the best wontons in China, either, but the cute, yellow bowls are always a highlight.
In Chinese, wontons are called “huntun.” They are similar to dumplings but are chunkier and usually served in a broth. There is also a tradition surrounding wontons, at least in southern areas of China. They are eaten on the first day of summer as a way to ensure good health for the rest of the season. I had some today. I damn well better not get sick.
Haibao’s Expat Guide: Ordering Noodles
Youtube warning for those reading from China:
When my brother and I were in Changzhou, we wanted to do a series of videos about the Shanghai Expo mascot, Haibao, giving advice to new expats in China. The first (and only) one we did focused on breaking away from the McDonald’s habit and eating local food (”la mian” and “dao xiao mian” noodles).
Alas, the weather got too cold after we finished “ordering noodles” to do anymore filming. Going around town with a Haibao puppet garnered a frustrating amount of attention, anyway. It’s hard to film when everybody wants to stand in front of the camera to watch what you’re doing.
We had some help with the puppetry and voice acting, but all filming and post production was done by JR.
Chinese Snack: Suan La Fen
Now that I’ve overindulged on Mexican food, it’s time to reminisce about Chinese cuisines again. Another favorite place of mine to eat in China was at the Ba Jie snack shops. They are most famous for “suan la fen,” an ass-kickingly spicy bowl of noodles with meat balls. It only costs five yuan, and there’s usually a huge line crowd of people waiting to buy it.
But Ba Jie has more than just suan la fen. Their chicken wings (ji chi) are the best chicken wings in China. They’re cheap, too! You’d pay twice as much for the same amount of wings in a sit-down restaurant. And to top it off, you gotta try one of those flat, baked pizza-type… things (called “bing” in Chinese). Be on the lookout.
Chinese Restaurant: Little Sheep
Hot Pot is such a staple in Chinese dining, it’d be a real shame if you came here and didn’t jump in the bowl. In a nutshell, they boil a pot of broth on your table, and you order raw meat and vegetables to cook yourself. Of all the Hot Pot restaurants, though (and there are many), Little Sheep is my favorite. The food is better quality, and the portions are bigger.
On the downside, Hot Pot isn’t exactly a “foreign friendly” place, and you’ll probably want to convince a Chinese friend to escort you the first few times you go. Yep, another case of “the menu is all in Chinese.” Fortunately, Little Sheep does have a special picture book of all their foods, and they love bringing this to my table whenever I go there without a Chinese associate.
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