Food

Din Tai Fung is a restaurant with locations throughout the world. It had been on my list for awhile to try their xiao long bao (soup dumplings) and their shaved ice. It’s a little nicer, so we left the kids home and enjoyed a date night out. We went to the location in Beijing closer to us, at the Xidan stop (lines 1 and 4). It’s in the basement of one of the malls there.

 

green beans with pork

 Their mascot is adorable.

 Dessert. It actually looks kind of gross (and strawberries were out of season so we went with mango) but this is a delicious, creamy, shaved ice concoction. So good. And that bowl is HUGE!

An older Chinese sister in our branch invited a bunch of us over for lunch to say goodbye to me and another sister who was moving with her family to Shanghai. She made delicious homemade jiaozi and this Zongzi (below). Zongzi is sort of an acquired taste. But the homeade jiaozi was yummy.

I found a place to by these bubble egg waffles in China (we discovered them in Hong Kong), and they sell a bubble waffle maker on amazon.com (US)!!! Yay!

 B and I went to a convert (Canadian Chinese woman named June) on the other side of town, so we decided to wait and eat while we were over there near all the yummy restaurants. We had some tuk tuk issues (driver yelling at us that we weren’t paying what he asked when he agreed upon Y10 and then dropped us off and started yelling that we owed him Y10 per person, B yelled back). And the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed. So we walked down Chaoyang Park Rd. and found this French/Vietnamese Bistro place. It was pretty good.

  Fried bananas

 Pad Thai

 Egg roll… I forgot to take a pic.

Veggie spring rolls

 

For my birthday, we went to a place called Al Safir, a Middle Eastern restaurant up by the US Embassy, because we heard they had great falafel and chicken shawarma. It may have given us food poisoning (we both had desperate need of the bathrooms at the Pearl Market shortly after eating here), but it was delicious. And I believe B went back again after I returned to the US and didn’t get sick on his second vist.

 

China Life

 Squidgems saw these and said, “Look, Phineas and Ferb!”

 Water brush calligraphy in a park.

 This is Buddy taking a picture of a Chinese guy with Squidgems with the guy’s phone. Near Tianan’men/Forbidden City.

 6/21 Super moon of some sort on the way home from youth activities.

 Before we sold our e-bike, we had to see how many of us we could fit on it at the same time.

 We also let PS take it on a little ride.

 

Walking from Decathlon toward home. Not sure why I took this picture.

 This cracked me up for two reasons. 1) the car parked on the sidewalk and 2) the sign says a Chinese name and then “Disaster Prevention Theme Park.”

 

For some reason, before starting the work day, salons sing/dance out front.

 Driving around in Becky’s car, the tallest and soon to be new tallest buildings in Beijing. And below, Short Pants.

 

 

This bike fold completely flat!

 PS looked long and hard for this popsicle she saw advertised that “peels.” We found it. It was gross.

 6/26 Trying out the new air conditioned booth on our way home from church on our last Sunday.

 

View of the train bridge taken from the pedestrian bridge on the way to church.

Church building. Well.. we use part of the 4th floor.

 Our bus stop.

 Cute girls at the new Summer Palace.

The vies from across the street from our building. This is the north gate of campus. Our building is the tall red one.

McD’s ice cream.

Check Check Check

6/8

On my crazy list of things to see and do in Beijing were a handful of little things that I’d never been able to check off. After our family photo shoot at the Ancient Observatory, we started to put a checkmark next to some of these things.

First up was the Kid’s Republic Bookstore. I’d seen it anytime cool bookstore or library designs are featured online, and as a book loving family, we had to see it in real life. It disappointed. It’s small and old and run-down and all the cool reading nooks were full of adults. It’s pretty cool, and I’m glad we saw it, but it wasn’t what I hoped for. And it didn’t help that it was almost entirely Chinese language books. (I know, I know… it’s in China… but still!)

Next up, a crazy China adventure. That wasn’t on my list. What was on B’s list was eating lunch at his favorite Indian restaurant, Ganges. Since we were still off of line one (the eastern end), we walked to a Ganges location we hadn’t been to before instead of some of the others in the north east we’d been to before. Walking around the mall it was supposedly in, we couldn’t find it so B called the number listed for them. A man answered and said he knew where we were, so he’d come out and get us. What ended up happening was he found us, took us to his driver (a Chinese man who spoke no English) and fit the 6 of us and a stroller into his driver’s sedan and had the driver drive us to the other location (one we’d been to before) because the location we were at was temporarily closed (that the entire basement of the mall was closed). B and I looked at each other, shrugged and got in the car. I was about a one mile drive. We ended up safely at the other Ganges and ate a delicious lunch. Only in China!!

Somehow, I heard about a Friends Cafe in Beijing. I was always a huge fan of the tv show Friends, I was even part of the live audience for a taping when I was in high school, so I knew I had to go. I never got the group of girl friends together to check it out, so Brandon (with his awesome map skills) got us there where we enjoyed some milk shakes and a cupcake. So fun! Especially since I’d just finished watching the entire series on Netflix.

 

China Life – the western end of line 1

We lived 5 stops from the western end of line 1, and way off in the distance we could see a pagoda on the hill. Before we moved, I wanted to ride to the end of the line and see how close it got. We thought about making a trip to the actual pagoda, but it was one more difficult place to get to without a car/driver and another place that would require great air so we could really see the view toward downtown. So we settled for getting a little bit closer.

We rode to the end of the line so we could say we rode the whole line. It takes a turn, so we rode back a few stops so we could see the straight shot through the middle of Beijing, east to west.

 Looking west.

 

 Looking east.. you can just barely see the tallest building downtown.

 

 

And then some typical Beijing sights…

 

 to cool off.

 Cherries.

 Ice cream. I’d actually never scene this before.

I think this is the only stop sign I ever saw in Beijing.

 

 

There’s a fake Disneyland out that way, we walked part of the way home so we could walk past it.

 

 

 

 

Typical fire extinguishing set up. Axes and buckets.

 

Cantaloupe on a stick.

 

Chinese Cooking

[The formatting is messed up from copying and pasting out of a word document of the recipes. Sorry.]

A sweet woman (Jane) in our branch responded that she’d show us some Chinese recipes when we asked if anyone would teach us how to cook some Chinese food. Her life is crazy busy (always) but she made time last Saturday (5/21) to show a handful of us some recipes. She’s from Hong Kong, and didn’t really learn how to cook until college at BYU but has lived in Shanghai and Beijing for about 7 years now.

First… chicken for Sweet and Sour Chicken and for General Tao’s chicken (the second recipe she admitted isn’t really Chinese, but she has to make food her kids will eat).

Chicken in batter

Batter:

• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Notes: We ended up quadrupling the batter (doubling it in two bowls). I’m not sure how much chicken we had…at least 8+ breasts. She used sunflower oil. Change the oil after a few batches. Check if oil is hot enough by putting chopsticks in…if small bubbles form around them, it’s ready.

Directions:

1. Coat the chicken pieces with 1/2 of cornstarch; set aside.
2. Beat the eggs, salt, and pepper in a mixing bowl until smooth. Stir in the flour and baking powder until no large lumps remain. Mix in the chicken until evenly coated.
3. Heat the vegetable oil in a deep wok or large skillet over high heat. Drop in the chicken pieces; cook until golden brown and no longer pink on the inside, about 12 minutes. Set the chicken aside; keep warm.

Sauces

Sweet and Sour Sauce

• 1 (8 ounce) can pineapple chunks, drained (juice reserved)
• (Jane uses the juice and then fresh pineapple)
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 3/4 cups water, divided
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
• 2 drops orange food color (optional)
• 8 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1/2 onion, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 green bell pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces(or red or yellow or orange)

***Batter: see General Tao’s Chicken recipe

In a saucepan, combine 1 1/2 cups water, sugar, vinegar, reserved pineapple juice, and orange food coloring. Heat to boiling. Turn off heat. Combine 1/4 cup cornstarch and 1/4 cup water; slowly stir into saucepan. Continue stirring until mixture thickens.

Slightly cook onion, add green peppers, pineapple chunks, add hot sweet and sour sauce, put chicken pieces on platter, pour sauce over chicken pieces.

General Tao’s Chicken sauce

• 4 teaspoons sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger root
• 1 clove chopped garlic
• 1/2 cup chopped green onion
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/4 cup oyster sauce
• 1/4 cup ketchup

Directions:

Reduce the heat to medium-high and stir in the sesame oil, ginger, and green onion. Cook and stir until the onion is limp and the garlic, ginger begins to brown, about 1 minute. Pour in the water, vinegar, and sugar; bring to a boil. Dissolve the cornstarch in the soy sauce and add to the simmering vinegar along with the oyster sauce and ketchup. Stir until the sauce has thickened and is no longer cloudy. Stir in the chicken and simmer until hot.

Chinese Green Beans with Pork

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb. ground pork
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons rice wine (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon peppercorns (if you have them) freshly ground
• 1-1/2 tablespoons garlic chili sauce (optional)
• 1-1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 lb. fresh green beans or long beans, trimmed and cut in half if desired (and blanched or boiled first)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, peeled and minced

In a small bowl toss the pork with 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of rice wine, sugar and the ground pepper. Marinate at room temperature while assembling the rest of the ingredients.

Make the brown sauce: in a separate bowl combine the remaining tablespoon of soy sauce, the remaining teaspoon of rice wine (optional), chili garlic sauce (optional), sugar, sesame oil and cornstarch. Set aside.

Heat a wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat and add the oil.

When the oil is hot add the beans, and salt and stir fry them for 10 minutes, or until they begin to brown and blister. Remove the beans from the pan using a slotted spoon and pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the oil. Return the pan to the heat and add the pork, garlic and ginger. Stir fry for about 3 minutes (optional, add some chopped chili peppers) or until there is no longer any pink color to the pork. Add the reserved sauce and green beans and mix well. The sauce will begin to thicken and shiny glaze the pork and beans.

Serve with steamed rice or pan fried noodles.

This recipe can be easily doubled. It works well with Chinese long beans, haricots verts, or green beans.

Fried Rice

• 4-5 cups rice…not too soggy (don’t add too much water when you cook it).
• 2+ eggs
• soy sauce
• green onions
• veggies, meat, etc.

Heat oil in walk. Scramble eggs. Add rice. Break up rice. Press it flat. Use two spoons to break and stir. Add cooked meat, onion, veggies (diced tiny), diced tomatoes, etc. Add green onions. Add soy sauce until you get the color you want (1/4 – 1/2 cup).

Stir Fry Brown Sauce

• 1/2 cup beef broth (optional)
• 2 teaspoons oyster sauce OR 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar (or brown sugar)
• 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch

Relief Society Belated Birthday Party

At church… we had a party to celebrate the organization of the Relief Society (our women’s organization). We accidentally ended up with too much cake… but really, can there ever be too much cake!?!

 

 

 

Date Night

5/7

Some friends Brandon works with invited us to try a new Indian Restaurant with them and a few other people. Brandon and I met them there. First we walked around the Houhai Lake area and then around the outside of the Drum and Bell Towers and the hutongs there.

 

The kids and I went to the Drum and Bell Towers last year, but Brandon hadn’t seen them so we walked around the courtyard between them and snapped some pictures before walking through the neighborhood north of them and then back south and east toward the restaurant. It’s sort of a hipster neighborhood… so lots of oblivious Chinese people living their lives, and lots of young foreigners thinking they are awesome because they are the only foreigner on their street.

 

 

 

 

Insert dinner picture here.

Wangfujing Snack Street

5/6

Subway line 1, Wangfujing stop, exit and walk north.

We wanted to check out Wangfujing Snack Street (Donghuamen Snack Night Market) to see crazy stuff like scorpions on a stick. It was worth the visit for the pictures, but I’m not sure any locals actually eat this stuff. Mostly we just saw other tourists taking pictures like we were. The food wasn’t as cheap as other street food, so we just tried a few things that looked like they’d taste good. 

What we ate:

spiral potato on a stick (with tomato aka ketchup)

verdict: consistency of a chip, and messy due to the ketchup 

 

banana donut thing

verdict: delicious

 

pineapple rice bowl

verdict: yummy

 

jiaozi

verdict: always yummy

 

Tanghulu (candied haw fruit on a stick)

verdict: not as good as we were hoping, kind of weird and mushy

 

eggroll like things

verdict: hot, and just okay

 

 

 

 

 

Then we wandered into a bookstore that had an entire floor of English language books! That took awhile for this book loving family.

 

 

 

 

Then another bookstore, not at exciting (closer to the subway) but it did have an airplane bedroom set Buddy loved. THEN, we saw the real snack street and the crowds!

 

 

 

Everyone was still hungry so at our subway stop we exited the side where our street food carts are. It was hilarious because the police must have been driving them away. Just as we showed up, they all rode away, returning after a trip around the block. They did this once more before they finally were set up and secure enough to take our orders. Buddy and Little Guy had “hot dogs” on a stick with some spices. B, PS and I had Kao Leng Mian. B got his la (spicy) and PS and I got ours bu la (not spicy). While we waited, I had to dump water on a small fire that ignited one of the times the police had driven away all the street vendors, the kids had their picture taken a bunch, and a random, English speaking Chinese guy gave us a bag of muffins (from a Starbucks type shop) as a thank you for me taking his picture with the kids.

 

 

China Life

 Walnut delivery bike (each basket is full of walnuts and in the center is a scale).

 

 

 

 

In China, not only is 13 bad luck, but so is 4 (so also 14).

 

 

Once spring and summer roll in, Chinese men wear these utility vests all the time. Usually they are older than this guy.

 

 The Xu family from church had us over for dinner and she made us homemade jiaozi! AND, she got stuck eating the mis-shapen ones I made.

 Chocolate ships at an import shop. That’s almost $7USD. I just use M&Ms or chop of candy bars when I make chocolate chip cookies.

 

This is not the same dog. Two dogs in red shoes.

 

 

 

Right down the street from us is a Chinese Uighur Muslim restaurant. The other day we bought some flat bread from them. I loved the way it looked.

 

A friend took his picture of a sign. We think it means “no spitting,” which would be a novel idea in China.

 

A desk in the lobby of B’s building. I want a school desk like this on wheels!

 

I see bikes like this and I can’t help but think that these were around during the Cultural Revolution.

 

 

Matchy matchy couple (and sharing carrying a bag).

 

 Paul Frank monkey detailed SUV.

A clear day. Further west than I normally take pictures (this section is called Shijingshan Road.) Above, toward the pagoda west of town. Below, toward Beijing, you can see the tallest building.

 

 

 

Buddy’s hot dog lunch from Tous le Jours

 

 Outside Carrefour… a French grocery store chain, the emergency fire cart.

 

 

Can you see the long hair growing out of his facial mole?! I’m not sure what it is, but people here seem to keep hair that I would pluck in a second.

 

 

 

Waiting for the train to come home from church, PS took this picture. I guess it’s a little A/C booth.

China Life – a guest post by B

This year for Spring Festival there were these public service announcement posters telling you to not set off fireworks because of the pollution they create.

The last of the three trains we ride to church every week. We get on at the terminus of the line, so we can get seats. We ride one stop like this. Most of the ride is like the next pictures.

Many of the church members who live in the westernized eastern suburbs talk about how difficult it is to have events at the church building because traffic can be bad and a drive to church could take over an hour. This is our typical Sunday morning commute. It’s 90 minutes each direction.

Before you leave for church, you have to decide if you are going to carry Squidgems the entire way there or none of it. Once his feet have touched the ground in the filthy outdoors of China, you cannot have his shoes come anywhere near your clothing. For most of our time here, I’ve carried him from door to door, but he’s larger now, and we don’t always get seats (although signs tell passengers to give up seats to children, not everyone does, because they need to be sitting down to watch their TV shows on their phones). So Squidgems rides his scooter to church most weeks now. It helps with the transfers (which can be hundreds of yards long), and it helps him have a place to sit when no one gives up his seat for him. This is what his ride is like most weeks.

Our local Korean place is full of jerks who can’t understand anything we say or gesture. So when I wanted bibimbap a few weeks ago, we had to go to the next-closest Korean place, which is called Cosmic Korean Restaurant (their translation, not mine). While there we were served water bottles with large labels reading, “Hotel Exclusive.” We were nowhere near a hotel.

Lots of these little two-seater cars are around China. This one, evidently, is three-quarters of an Audi.

 

Last week, my wife and I rode our electric bike to Walmart. On the way we saw the “no horse-drawn carts” traffic sign as we were approaching Fourth Ring Road. We commented to each other how it seemed that sign was no longer necessary. That evening, on the way home from Walmart, we saw this horse-drawn cart, parked two blocks from our house. People were selling red bell peppers out of the back. The horse was just, like, “Whatever.”

I’ve been intrigued with the cultural differences in perception of beauty. It seems the Chinese women that Western men find beautiful are not the same women that Chinese men find beautiful. Which I guess is a win-win: Chinese guys get their “hot” wives and Westerners take the “homely” old maids off the market. My wife said, “I don’t see any Chinese men that I find attractive.” I said, “I see good-looking guys, but they aren’t the ones China thinks are good looking. They are rugged, fit manual laborers with messy hair and stubble. They’d be male models in the U.S., but here they are ignored because they are poor.” Male beauty here is very much tied to wealth. This subway ad features an “attractive” man. How do I know? Because look at that expensive cat bag he has!

Or you can just go the Japanese route of making viewers say to themselves, “Wha?!” Somehow this llama is supposed to make you want to buy shoes.

This nonsensical statue at least got anatomy right where it counts.

Our local lingerie store is selling these pajama sets. I’m not sure what the emoji is supposed to signify. Is Islamic State genocide all about the lulz here? China is very lax on blood and violence. While a recent TV show was re-edited to obscure the historically-accurate cleavage, R-rated violence is shown on the subway TVs all the time. One Sunday our ride to church featured all the “best” kill shots from the film American Sniper. A TV show I was watching last week had CGI-added blood spurts. Public TVs in China have aired Islamic State beheading videos on repeat. I think this clothing company is taking the 21st-century’s closest thing (so far) to the Holocaust and has turned it into a marketing slogan that’s supposed to make young women feel comfortable.

 

My wife and I were supposed to meet some colleagues for dinner at a new Indian restaurant (Raj Indian Restaurant). I felt like I was cheating on my favorite Indian restaurant (Ganges), but my love of Indian food made me go. Before dinner, we saw the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower. This is us with the Bell Tower. While the first Bell Tower was built in 1272, this version was built in 1745. (Verdict on the Indian restaurant: nicer restaurant than my favorite, but slightly worse food, comparable prices, and much more difficult to get to. I’ll stick with my favorite place.)

Walking home from church on Sunday, my wife went full Chinese and had her toddler pee in the bushes on the edge of the sidewalk.

A lizard on a support column on the fifth floor of my office building. Later in the day I doubted it was real, so I sort of poked at it and it ran around for a while.