Dinner with Pearl

You've heard of "My Dinner with Andre"? I need to make a compilation of "My Dinners with Pearl"!

Last night Pearl took me and two other teachers out to dinner at a Northern China cuisine restaurant in her neighborhood (seems wrong putting the word "cuisine" in there but, oh well). The place is called "Liu's Traditional Juancun Food". Liu's Link

Liu's is famous for it's sour (fermented) cabbage hot pot.  After we were seated we had to go pick 3 plates of sides and choose a drink. Wendy, one of my dining companions, chose these little housemade pickles - delicious...

these other veggies (no clue what they were) and boiled peanuts (which are common in the food here).

Look at this hot pot! The pot is heated from the center and was filled with fish balls (no, they are not gross; they are great), porkbelly, a pile of fermented cabbage, tofu, other beancurd items and this wonderful broth. We got to choose a sampling of sauces and spicy items to make our own sauce to dip things into. Nomnom! The cabbage is fermented in this natural, traditional way that has been used for centuries.

This is Lee. Lee and his wife Wendy are also new teachers this year.

In the background are pork dumplings and then to the left are scallion pancakes. To the right are these amazing beef and chicken rolls that were filled with meat, veggies and this wonderful sauce. They were light and savory. I'm not sure how they got them so light and crispy and delicious! They are served cold and from the website I see the name of these translate to burrito.

 Those are the fishballs on the top. I've become a fan of fishballs since I've been here. I know, I said "balls". Get your mind out of the gutter people!

This hot pot is good for what ails you! I could see myself coming here when I had a cold or if it was a cold, dreary day, not that it get's cold here. EVER!

 These are hand cut noodles (they called them sliced noodles) served with veggies, cabbage and other goodies. The noodles were thicker and chewier than traditional noodles but in a good way. 

We shared a couple of bigger bottles of the local Taiwanese beer and in that bamboo steamer were little cakes for dessert. The desserts in Taiwan are a bit different. Drinks like teas are SO sweet they hurt your teeth and I always have to order them with little or no sugar. But the desserts are not very sweet at all and they can include things like tomatoes, sweetened red beans or glutinous rice. I tend to go for the fruit if there is dessert at all. These little cakes, that you can see in this website photo below, were a bit strange in texture and then you have the sweetened red beans in there too. Not something I would want on a regular basis.

If you want to read more about the history of this type of food, I found this cool article about how different foods came from military families in housing they retreated to after the civil war. 

Juan Cun Food

Next up for "My Dinners with Pearl"? Perhaps a local dumpling place or Dim Sum! Can't wait!