Scorpions, snakes, and tarantulas, oh my! Food in China.

One of the (many) highlights of my trip to China was the food! We ate at some incredible restaurants in Luoyang and Beijing. Even the food made by the cooks at Maria’s Big House of Hope was amazing!

The continental breakfast our first morning in Beijing was huge! We had all kinds of amazing food: some traditional American and some Chinese. One of the best parts of breakfast was a dumpling with spinach and eggs inside as well as the apple juice and fresh fruit. That's an advantage to eating in China: they serve you what is truly in season, so you can be pretty confident that whatever fruit you're about to eat will be good.

At the Duck Restaurant in Luoyang we ate many courses of food for lunch… I think it was 10~12 in total. Fried corn, Peking Duck rolls, shrimp, broccoli, sweet and sour pork, spring rolls, potstickers, eggplant, fried rice, watermelon… you get the idea. This was also the restaurant where I ate one of the weirdest things I’ve ever eaten. You have to ask me about that in person though ;)

Fried corn... the best thing ever. They need to serve this instead of popcorn at the movies! The corn was sweet, but the breading was light and salty. Yum-o.

I believe this was a mongolian beef wrap of some sort.

Jiaozi (potstickers), shrimp, broccoli and yellow peppers, and white rice.

Eggplant and fried rice.

Here you can see the gorgeously carved watermelon (fruit always signifies the end of the meal in China: they don't really have desserts, per se.) and the incredible sweet and sour pork. It was the best sweet and sour pork I've EVER had. I was so full, but I just kept eating it!

Also in Luoyang we went to have Chinese Barbecue. We had three different types of chicken wings, flatbread with green onions, crunchy noodles, edamame beans, and more. Everything there was spicy but very yummy!

The team while eating Chinese Barbecue!

While in Beijing we had equally delicious meals. The Novotel Peace Hotel was where we stayed for the last two nights of our trip, and the first night we were there was Italian Food Night. I had delicious ravioli (cooked with chopsticks, of course!), crusty French bread, fruit, and desserts. For breakfast at the hotel I had fresh crepes with chocolate sauce and whipped cream, homemade pancakes and waffles, pastries, fruit, and juice.

Fresh crepe with chocolate and whipped cream and a pastry with cream cheese and pineapple = basically the best breakfast ever.

Another memorable thing was going to a street market in Beijing around 8:30 p.m. on Friday night. There were so many stands of “food” at the market. Squid, octopus, crickets, scorpions, silk worm eggs, birds, snake, fruit, centipedes… lots of crazy things that I had no interest in eating! I did try a berry that looked like a round, giant raspberry. It had a pit the size of an almond and was a little bit sour. There were large sugar crystals on the outside that helped sweeten it. They also had strawberries on a stick, dipped in melted sugar, and cooled. Those were quite yummy and very sticky!

Look at the size of those spiders! Apparently you pull the legs off, and slide the muscle meat out of the exoskeleton. Then you pop it in your mouth like a french fry! Kenzie and I were going to eat tarantula, but when we got to the market and actually saw them, we chickened-out. They were too big and just nasty. What about the centipedes to the left of the spiders? Want one of those? No thanks. I'll pass too.

The white curly things are snakes, the middle brown things are silk worm eggs, and the pink/purple squiggles are squid. Mmm... not.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, we have an unknown food item, giant grasshoppers, some type of worm, and seahorses. No takers? Okay, we'll keep walking.

Here we have some type of bird. Body mostly intact... not sure about internal organs though. I assume they had been removed.

Before you think that my entire team was comprised of a bunch of wimps, I'll have you know that some people ate snake (they just gnawed it off the stick since it was so tough) and scorpions. Whole scorpions. Apparently they tasted just like french fries... with a few more pokey legs. Also, I too was not a wimp when it came to the eating department. Just ask me. I'll prove myself. I promise.

Alright. Enough of the nasty. ;)

On our last night in China we went to a restaurant that specializes in potstickers/dumplings called Jiaozi. We also had sweet potatoes that were caramelized in brown and white sugar. They were piping hot, sticky, and one of my favorite things I ate in China. Unfortunately I did not have a picture of them.

When I returned home to the U.S., I was determined to not eat Chinese food for awhile since it would not even compare to how good authentic Chinese food is. Well, I was right. A few weeks after getting home we had Chinese food and it was nothing like the "real stuff." Haha. :)

While it was very entertaining to see, smell, and even taste some of the things, both good and bad, that these groovy people eat, I was still quite happy to arrive back home and have milk, cheese, peanut butter, and chocolate waiting for me. :)

Audrey