This is their specialty noodle dish. Initially I thought the noodle contains tofu but tofu is at the bottom. Tofu and noodle is served with spicy sauce with peanuts topped with braised ground meat. Very flavorful but it wasn't as spicy as it looks. Probably because this is breakfast??
Other dishes includes:
Eggy tofu with meat sauce
Rice flour dumpling with sweet/savory ground meat inside
Dumpling
After breakfast, I walked around the city and stop by at this place
This is Chendu's Fuqi feipian, literary meaning husband and wife lung piece. "fei" originally spelled "offal" (organ meats) but the Chinese alphabet was later changed to "lung." Lung can be a part of this dish but lung is not the only offal that is used. This fuqi feipian is served in the pita-like bread. Like other szechuan dishes, it's served with plenty of chili oil but the bread absorbs the oil and is supposed to prevent it from dripping. However, it still gets pretty messy. It wasn't spicy in terms of chili, but it gives a nice numbness from szechuan pepper corn.
After the snack, I kept walking and found very unique looking food court. Since it was still pretty early, around 10:00am, not everything was open but it looks like there are more than 20 vendors.
For the first time, I saw one of Chengdu's most famous regional foods, rabbit's head. It's pretty graphic and I was surprised that this many heads can be sold. It must be popular... Heads are covered with chili flakes and I believe it's flavorful. But it's questionable if there's much to eat...
While I was heading back to the hotel to take a short rest, I found an interesting looking mango. It is bigger than most mangoes and very yellow green. I thought it's not ripened yet but this is the color it's supposed to be. According to the fruit shop staff, this is a locally grown mango. I didn't know mangos can grow in inland China... The staff said she could cut the mango, so I decides to try one to snack on at the hotel.
It tasted closer to red & green and round mangos than the small yellow ones from Southeast Asia.
There are tons of hot pot restaurants in Chengdu. My Chinese friend found this place from a Chinese review site and it's one of the most popular in Chengdu. Since it sounds like this restaurant is always crowded, we chose a late lunch after 2:00 pm. Still, there were more than 20 people waiting before us. Although the menu was written all in Chinese, I found the restaurant's name on the outside wall spelled in English, which is Xiaolongkan.
The waiting time wasn't that bad, approximately 15 minutes. The decor inside was newly renovated yet retro, and very clean. There were 3 levels of heat for the broth. Because of everything I've had since I arrived, I ordered spiciest of the three and non spicy broth for my friend (the small pot in the center is non-spicy broth). However, the waiter brought the mildest saying they can add more spices if we'd like to after tasting first. I was a little worried because they may tone down everything for "tourists" (people in Chengdu speak Mandarin but with heavy accent so they can tell my Chinese friend is not local).
I'm glad I didn't insist on the spiciest.... It was an amazingly tasty broth but very spicy. It was still an edible level spiciness for me, but approached the upper end of my heat tolerance. Although it's pretty "hot" in terms of chili, the numbness from the Szechuan pepper corn is strong too. I finally had the Szechuan flavors that I wanted to have in Chengdu!!!
Topping (cilantro and chopped garlic), flavored oil and tea
Tripe
Meat ball on top of rose petal (I'm not sure if the rose petal does anything flavor-wise...). The meat ball was very flavorful
Wood ear mushroom and pork belly
As I ate, the broth kept getting spicier because the chili and Szechuan pepper corn were being cooked. It was almost inedible by the time I finished the meal. I'm so glad that the waiter gave me the mildest first..... Anyway, this was an amazing meal!!!
In the evening, I went to a famous place, called Kuanzhaixiangzi, which consists from 3 parallel streets (wide, medium and small). Two bigger streets are filled with restaurants, tea houses, food stands and souvenir shops. Although it was a weekday evening, it was packed with people.
Because I was still stuffed from the huge hot pot lunch, I didn't try any street food, though it all looked so inviting... I managed to try the grilled tofu with chili flakes on top. It was a light late night snack.
I believe I accomplished a lot this day. I hope I can try this many dishes tomorrow!
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