Eggplants!

(A picture of the dining area for students near our dorm)

Today is the day that I break down and eat at McDonald’s. It has been a few weeks now and after my first Chinese test today and I think I deserve it! I passed my first test today, which is great! It may be wrong to reward myself with French fries and chicken nuggets but that’s just how I do things.

The food in China, however, is absolutely amazing! Two of my favorite dishes here have been eggplant and bok choy. Apparently, there are different kinds of eggplant raised in China. You’re probably thinking eggplant sounds pretty gross but trust me - it’s easily one of the most delicious things when it is cooked right! Yesterday I ate at a vegetarian restaurant with friends and we had Japanese-style eggplant with miso and cilantro and, now, normally…vegetables don’t get me excited. But China really knows how to make their vegetables taste delicious!

Bok choy is a typical Chinese food and every time I encounter it, it always tastes a little different. I really wish I knew how they cook these things and make them so great, but since I have no cooking skills AT ALL, I will just hope that some authentic Chinese restaurant will have them back in the States! There is one dish that I know I won’t find, though, and that’s the rice burritos we get on the streets. They are literally like burritos, but instead of a flour shell it’s glutinous rice molded together. With beef, lettuce, cucumbers, and some other random tofu things inside – it’s a wonderful, wonderful creation by the Chinese street vendors.

My experience with China has been really different in regards to food, compared to Singapore. There are durians here, but I still have yet to eat one! A durian is a famous fruit from Southeast Asia that smells like death (trust me on this), but a lot of people love the taste if you can get over the texture. Here, though, there is bread and there is chocolate! I really missed bread and chocolate while I was in Singapore but they have been really accessible here. Of course, there is a lot of rice, but it is almost like I had more rice in Southeast Asia than I did in China!






(Pictures of my delicious rice burrito lunch!)