Yong He Soy Milk

Yong He Soy Milk is a chain with several branches in Chengdu that serve up basic and quality Chinese food in a comfortable, informal atmosphere. I don't often bring tourists here, but it's one of the first places I introduce to new residents. Since soy milk is their specialty, they open early and are very busy for breakfast and lunch. You can see many locals dipping youtiao (long, not-sweet doughnuts) into steaming bowls of soy milk at breakfast, or eating pot stickers and dumplings or fried eggs. Table sharing is very common at the busier branches.

At lunch, about a third of the tables seem to have an order of stewed ribs and rice (大排饭）. The meat is tender with just the right amount of richness, and you get half a stewed egg and greens with the order. They often run out.


The vegetable soup (素菜汤） is always a great indicator of kitchen quality. Note the fresh and clean greens, and how they use real soup broth instead of water.



An order of green pepper and beef fried rice (青椒牛肉炒饭). Not greasy, and with an excellent stuff/rice ratio.


This is the branch on Xi Da street, (2nd floor of Golden Hawaii building) showing their red and white logo and writing in traditional Chinese characters:


They charge not quite double what you would pay for the same items in a local place but the cleanness and quality of the food, served up by well-trained staff, make the prices very worth it. However, they are not always consistent between branches and I suspect a few are copycat restaurants. The above location on Xi Da Street is a solid choice. The one on Fang Cao Street is one of my favourites (they used to burn their soy milk a lot but have been better lately). The Kehua North Road branch is good and has the most gorgeous, silky soy milk ever. The branches on the east and south first ring and the branches in the Auchan supermarkets can be skipped. However, if I find myself hungry in an unfamiliar area of the city, I am pretty happy to catch a glimpse of that red sign.

Name: 永和豆浆

Addresses for a few of their locations:

Yanshikou, downtown: 锦江区东御街19号人民商场B1楼

Kehua North Rd: 武侯区棕北小区科华北路46号

Fang Cao Street: 武侯区芳草西二巷22号

Xi Da Street: 青羊区西大街84号金色夏威夷2楼

Ant Cafe

Ant Cafe is a shop that serves sweet snacks and basic meals. It is tucked into a corner behind Wangfu Garden, on Yulin West.


The first thing I tried here was a mango pancake - large chunks of very good mango wrapped up with whipped cream in a pancake. (The whipped cream didn't taste very real, but appropriate in the same way that processed cheese makes more sense on a cheeseburger.)

The mango tapioca, simple and very good:


The interior really makes the most of the small space, with each table feeling unique and private due to screens, shelves, and plants. You can come here as a couple or in a big group.



It's too bad there is no English on the menu. There are pictures, but unless you are familiar with all the jellies, syrups, fruits, beans, and other strange concoctions that make up Asian desserts the pictures are about as helpful as the Chinese characters. The servers are adorable and polite but not particularly helpful while ordering. Super Piggy's blog (Chinese) has more.

Name: 蚂蚁揸甜品店

Address: 武侯区玉林西路165号附16号

Guanghua Village Snack Street

The busiest and most delicious snack streets are often located near schools and universities. The Guanghua Village snack street is just adjacent to the Sichuan Administrative College, and opposite the second south gate of the Southwest University of Finance and Economics. It extends a longs ways back from the street and is lined with small restaurants, sweet shops, and food carts.

Everyone on the street seemed to be munching on a ball or two of tang you guo zi (糖油果子）along with whatever else they were eating. I've never been a fan of this sweet, but these were served piping hot and were miraculously crispy outside and soft inside.


You can see the attention to detail just in how the raw dough is laid out. There are actually two manning this cart, one guy cooking and the other tossing cooked balls in sesame and taking orders. The guy with the wok was paying close attention to the temperature and condition of the sweetened oil, which was uncommonly clean. They were only 1.5 yuan per stick.


One of the specialties of Sichuan is 'iron plate' barbecue. You choose your items on skewers just like for regular barbecue, but then they are cooked on a flat metal grill. They are often partly deep fried first. Waertie barbecue, the shop with the greasy green sign, uses the deep fry method and then arranges your selection nicely on one of the trays. I picked up pea shoots, herbs and pork wrapped in tofu skin, shiitake and oyster mushrooms, zucchini, konnyaku, and some thin and very sweet sausage.



This is the after-school crowd, at about 5:30 in the evening. Later on the stinky tofu vendors and barbecue carts come out.


Location: Guanghua Village street, just beside main gate of Sichuan Administrative College
青羊区光华村街56号四川行政学院小巷

Back to the Tea Market

Early this week I went back to the Wukuaishi tea market, in search of something to drink in cooler weather. I was specifically on the lookout for pu-erh tea and Yunnan red. On this trip I realized I'd only seen a tiny corner of the tea market before. It does span several streets and buildings.

One of the many tea culture sculptures in the area:


Workers picking through Tie Guan Yin in front a shop specializing in this kind of tea. We tasted some but thought the prices quoted were a bit high for the quality.


Tea Joy, which I referred to in a previous post, seemed way more expensive than before. If you come here, bargain hard.



Some bags of small pressed Pu-erh; Tibetan brick tea on lower left:



Besides tea there are all manner of flowers, herbs, and fruit for steeping. My friends bought rosebuds, lavender, and sliced licorice root.



Location: Wukuaishi Tea Market, close to Wukuaishi bus station.
五块石茶叶市场

Ladies and Gentlemen....

May I present,

Dry-Fried Green Beans!

Mountain Treasure

Chengdu is peppered with mountain treasure (山珍) restaurants, which specialize in mushrooms, fungus, and medicinal foods. I wanted to visit one before the mushroom season was over and found my way to the mushroom restaurant in Beilian Tianfu with a couple of friends on the weekend.

The server who took our order didn't give much guidance about the menu, but talked me into ordering a box of corn juice to share, which tasted just like the liquid in a can of corn. Then a new, very pleasant and attentive server took over and cared for us very well, explaining how to cook and eat the mushrooms.

The rather intimidating main attraction - their most basic mix of mushrooms. The only ones I recognized were the chicken leg mushrooms, bamboo fungus, the pig stomach mushrooms, and the beef liver mushrooms. I asked our server to introduce the others but most of the explanations were beyond my Chinese.



Individual pots of soup (you can also order a large bowl). Rich and complex without being the least bit greasy. I tried to ask what was in the soup, but beyond 'secret recipe' not much of the explanation registered. Once the soup was boiling, the mushrooms were added and cooked for several minutes.


A rich dish of liang fen (cubes of yellow bean starch) with pork belly, recommended by the server. It wasn't bad, but everything else was so good we left most of it.


Baby bok choi in a chicken sauce with goji berries.


This type of hot pot is much lighter than traditional kinds, with no oily broth or dipping sauce, but felt ten times as nourishing. The varied textures and flavours of the mushrooms were so interesting I could have kept eating them all night. The really remarkable thing was how good the food made us feel. We didn't finish eating until late, but I felt energized enough to walk all the way home.

Name: 川野山珍酒楼
Address: 武侯区科华中路9号百联天府购物中心

Fourth floor of Beilian Tianfu Shopping Mall, just south of the second ring on Kehua Middle Road.

Huang Cheng Lao Ma Hot Pot

I'd often walked by the architecturally interesting building on the south side of the second ring near the Zijing cinema complex without any clue that this was a branch of the high end hot pot chain Huang Cheng Lao Ma, probably the best known hot pot in Chengdu.


A friend and I went to check it out this evening. You can choose self serve, at Y110 per person, or to order from the menu (our choice). I was very pleased that we could order the hot pot stir-ins in both large and small portions. Goose intestine, served in a bowl of ice water, and lamb:


Shrimp balls, like shrimp dumplings with no wrapper. Really liked these in both the mild and spicy soup.


For soup we ordered basic yuanyang style (half spicy, half mild). This was some of the best mild soup I've ever eaten, milky white with a good rich pork flavour. The serving plate lettuce and green vegetables were cooked in the white soup and eaten with great satisfaction. The spicy side was pretty ordinary, though it got spicier very quickly. (It's normal for hot pot soup to get more and more spicy as you eat, but the effect was very intense here.) However, the potato starch noodles at the end were amazing good, cooked in the spicy soup and dipped in a garlic and sesame.


The servers were efficient, attentive, and completely unobtrusive as they poured tea, picked up used serviettes, cleared dishes, and kept the hot pot temperature at the perfect bubble.

For a first visit, I was pretty impressed but it was still about double the price of comparable tasting hot pot elsewhere. They also have many special options on the menu, like French goose liver and special mushrooms, which can quickly inflate the check. Even though there were many large groups, the room was about half full and lacked the friendly chaotic buzz that hangs around a more typical hot pot evening in Chengdu.

Name: 皇城老妈
Address: 二环路南三段 20 号

Homestyle on Kehua North

This is the wood paneled place on Kehua North, with the mysterious name 'mumfortunerestaurant'.

The yu xiang eggplant, very garlicky, in the typical homestyle swimming pool of oil:


Preserved vegetable and shredded pork soup:



The food is 'yi ban', just okay, and a little expensive.

Chinese name: 聚缘家味馆
Address: 科华北路36号

Pizza and Sweet

"Is your fruit pizza made the same way? With ketchup and cheese, and baked?" I asked the server.

"Yes, the same. Baked."

"What fruit do you use?" (The girls at the next table were sharing a fruit salad, cubes of either apple or Asian pear tossed in mayonnaise.)

"It's sweet. Do you want one?"

"Oh, next time."

I wasn't curious enough to order the fruit pizza, though one left the shop in a large takeout box while I was there. The shop had only three small tables, but a steady stream of customers ordering takeout kept the staff on their toes.

The all-Chinese menu board advertises fragrant chicken pizza, beef pizza, sausage pizza, and the fruit pizza. I'd ordered a small fresh vegetable pizza (鲜蔬比萨) for nine yuan. The six inch crust was spread with ketchup and covered with mushrooms, onions, green peppers, corn, and peas. ('Ketchup' and 'tomato sauce' both translate to 蕃茄酱, so in Chinese there's officially no difference.)




The sweet part of the menu includes green bean and red bean soup, sundaes, and toast (考土司). You can get toast spread with peanut butter, jam, or chocolate syrup for two yuan, or toast with ham, ketchup, and egg.

Storefront:


Name: 比萨甜品
Location: 小南街 13 号

North part of Xiao Nan Street, opposite west gate of People's Park.

Yang Yang

Yang Yang belongs to the infamous 'fly shack' (苍蝇馆子) genre of restaurant, which means a modest place with walls open to the outside that serves basic Sichuanese or homestyle food. Yang Yang distinguishes itself with very good classic dishes as well as a couple more unusual ones and an upper floor with washrooms and private rooms. The place is extremely popular among both locals and foreigners.

When the server set the hot dishes down, they were still carrying smoky pepper fumes from the wok. Clockwise from bottom: spicy cold pork slices mixed with garlic, very tender beef stir fried with green pepper, dry-fried green beans (must order), and a wood ear mushroom dish.


Not lovely, but very crunchy and tasty gong bao ji ding:


One dish that gets carried to many tables is the Japanese tofu (日式铁板豆腐), tender fried pieces of soft golden tofu in a sweet and sour sauce. The classic Sichuan crispy fish (脆皮鱼) is beautiful and another must order. The fried potatoes are very popular as well.

They are busy enough to require a fee for the private rooms, but it can be waived if your bill goes over a certain amount. This plus the open BYOB policy make Yang Yang a very inexpensive place for a group.

Storefront, behind trees on a residential street, very easy to walk by:


Service is very efficient but can be uncooperative to surly, and don't bother trying to eat there during afternoon mahjong time. I'm putting a not-spicy label on this post, not because you can't get hot food here but because many of their best dishes are not spicy and it's a very good place for people who can't handle heat. Also hear they have an English menu.

Name: 杨杨 餐馆
Address: 武侯区锦苑巷24号 West of Sichuan University West gate; north of American consulate in Zongbei area. Most cab drivers know it.

Cold Mixed Rice Noodles at Yunnan Mengzi

All the other customers in Yunnan Mengzi were eating Crossing the Bridge Noodles, which is also my default order. This time I decided to break tradition and asked for cold mixed rice noodles (凉拌米线). A bowl of fresh rice noodles arrived topped with cilantro, sliced chicken, spicy garlic oil, peanuts, and shredded carrots:


This branch of Yunnan Mengzi has long been one of my favourite places to eat and bring visitors, but it wasn't as good as usual. The quality of the chicken was fine, but instead of the crispy fried pieces of chicken in the picture they used sliced white meat, a disappointing bait and switch. I also ordered a plate of greens, which came out way too salty.The formerly excellent service was careless, and the dining room is looking and feeling a bit neglected . I may have to stick with their other branch on Renmin Middle Road.

Name: 云南蒙自过桥米线
Location:陕西街, 菜市场 对面

On Shaanxi Street across from the farmer's market, on the next block down from all the tailor shops.

Chicago Cheesecake from Good Wood

Most coffee houses in Chengdu are, unfortunately, grim places. The decor usually includes thick drapes, tablecloths, and cloth upholstery; all of which suffer in the dank climate and clouds of cigarette smoke. They serve a harsh cup of coffee, and charge 25 to 35 yuan or more for the most basic kind. (To put things into perspective, 35 yuan is about what you would spend in an entire day going to Luodai, climbing the wall, drinking tea at the Jinlong temple, taking a bus back to the old town, seeing the sights while eating excellent snacks, and coming home.)

Good Wood is a typical coffee house chain that is found all over Chengdu. I've stepped into a few and stepped out again due to the smoke, and had mediocre cups of coffee in others. I ended up in this one near Hong Wa Si because I was tired of the tea house next door. My server, however, was exceptionally nice and helpful as she took my order, explaining the flavours of all the desserts. She described the Chicago cheesecake as a bit tart, and it did have the cheese tang that is missing from most cheesecake you buy here:


Mainly because of the friendly and enthusiastic server, afternoon coffee and cake felt like a real treat.

Good Wood Coffee: 良木缘咖啡西餐
Address: 武侯区红瓦寺街9号附4号

South of first ring, Hong Wa Si area on south side of Jiuyan Bridge. I hope this is the right address; there are many branches around the university.