After short nap at the Li Min Hotel, we were hungry for dinner. The original plan was to spend the night at the summit at Emei Shan, but since we arrived after the last bus to the Emei Shan had departed, we had no choice but to stay in Baoguo village. It would have been interesting to sleep on top of the mountain though since there were a lot of places to stay there anyway.
First order of business is to find something to eat. Our driver was at the lobby hanging out and asked if we wanted something to eat. Apparently, they also have their own restaurant. He kept telling us that their food was better than the others and that it all costs the same, but we wanted other shops to get our money this time, so we had to disappoint him.
Just outside the hotel was a food street. There is a whole line of restaurants to choose from. Interestingly, they all serve the same food and the prices are all the same. Our driver was right. Cartel anyone? Somehow, the concept of competition doesn’t work here. I guess the competition is who can cook the better food. We eventually settled on a shop right in front of the Li Min Hotel. The name of the restaurant is Lai Feng Yu 来风鱼. Whenever I travel, I make it a point to eat the local food. China, is definitely not going to be an exception.
China, as you know, is a huge country. Likewise, there is a huge variety of food that comes from the country. Major cuisines in China are the Cantonese, Beijing, Hunan, Hangzhou and the Sichuan cuisine. I have already sampled some Sichuan cuisine before and I loved the spicy flavors of their cuisine. This was also one of the primary reasons why I wanted to visit this region in the first place.
I ordered a few dishes on the menu which sounded familiar to me. First one was spicy and fragrant smoked meat 香辣腊肉. As the name suggests, it is basically smoked meat cooked the Sichuan style, spicy and very fragrant. The smoked meat is usually pork and it quite resembles bacon. The next dish is mapo doufu 麻婆豆腐. This dish is found the world over and has its origins in Sichuan province. This is a bloody red dish of spicy bean curd. And true to the Sichuan spirit, it is also fragrant and quite salty. The last dish we ordered is the spicy chicken 辣子鸡, which is fried chicken cooked in Sichuan spices.
After all that waiting I would have to say, that the food wasn’t as good as what I had hope to be. It guess, I can’t just walk up to any restaurant in Sichuan and expect excellent quality food. I would say that it wasn’t even as spicy as I wanted it to be. Maybe they toned it down for tourists who they think can’t handle the heat. Most disappointing was the mapo doufu, it was only red in appearance but wasn’t spicy at all. The spicy chicken was okay, but it had bones, and the thing is, this is how it is supposed to be. The Chinese believe, rightly so, that the meat closest to the bone is the tastiest. I would agree, but I still don’t like to fish bones from my mouth every now and then.
Although it wasn’t as good as I hoped it to be, it was still a very satisfying meal. It would be the first proper meal we had in a day too. It was a great way to keep warm in the cold air here in Sichuan. In the meantime, I will have to keep searching for the Sichuan food of my dreams.
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