Working through all my favorites, this is chopped bullfrog in extra 麻辣(numbspicy) soup.
I complimented the waitstaff that I’ve been to their restaurant twice now because they use the real chongqing oil, very fresh and tangy compared to chili oils from other cities and provinces.
They proudly told me they fly it in from Chongqing to ensure quality and I believe it.
i love that numb feeling, but I understand it can get pretty intense. There was this one shop I always ordered extra 麻 at, and one time I had to literally stop eating my 蒜薹腊肉 for five minutes because my throat was closing up with all the 麻胶 I was eating. Finished the plate after my brief respite, of course.
Dang I have to go look for a 腊肉 restaurant next.
Where are you at the moment?
Beijing, popping around the city to see different friends from ye ol English teaching days.
Oh crap yeah, we had the long talk about WeChat, right?
Yea, the new payment systems and everything. Which is still going well, btw: I’ve registered with the city bus, subway, and made about 50 transactions across the city at every level of store, vendor and restaurant.
Oh yeah, never had problems with public transport. I’m really hoping those odd edge cases are fine when I’m back in September.
Me too, good luck and feel free to post or just reach out and let me know because I’ll be very curious to see if they fixed those anomalies for you. It’s so much fun being back here I think I’m going to go down to Yunnan or something in the future.
The problem with Beijing is def still the smog, although my friends are telling me that it has been getting much better and I basically just am visiting during the worst week of smog they’ve seen all year.
Yunnan is great. I’m actually going to Kunming. I spent a lot of time there, made a lot of friends, and it’s probably my favourite city in China. That or Xi’An.
The weather is great there too. Never too hot.
I have to say I don’t care for Beijing. Smog or not, the layout of the city is very unappealing when compared with other Chinese cities.
Yea, luckily so many other great ones. I’m really into Chongqing myself.
Great to hear about Kunming, I always hear good things and like the cooler weather myself, but I haven’t yet been or know anyone there. It’ll be fun. Do the weed grandmas still sell weed there? I don’t smoke, but that always sounded so funny to me.