No wonder travelers to Vietnam fall in love with Hoi An. It is close to beaches, a gazillion times less chaotic than Saigon and Hanoi, and home to amazing, amazing food. In a previous post, I professed my love to banh mi op la, the best breakfast in Southeast Asia. Here, I'll elaborate on some noodles whose photos I still drool over.

While riding a motorbike to the beach, we stopped at a roadside noodle stand for lunch. I was so famished and ready to pounce at a table that my left leg brushed against the muffler of the motorbike. The iron-hot muffler. The scorching pain was momentary, but my leg now had a burn mark the size of a big toe. The restaurant ower sat me down, then zoomed away and back, super hero-style, with a tube of ointment. At least, I thought it was ointment. The next minute, my leg was tingling and covered with what really was minty toothpaste. In the middle of nowhere, any moisturizing gel or was better than no ointment at all.

 

Oodles of Noodles

Karaage!

Last summer when Jacob went to Budapest for a conference, he took an few hours to stroll around the city's "Chinatown." Except there wasn't much of one, at least not the kind with red-and-gold gates and tons of indistinguishable souvenir vendors - kitschy but telltale signs that a city at least tries to embrace its multicultural identity. 

With Hungary, the situation is a little more complicated. Through numerous conversations with Hungarians, many of them ultra-liberal on a range of political issues, there was an underlying resentment of recent Chinese immigrants. The country's Chinese population mostly consists of Fujianese who arrived starting in the 1980s, a good portion who may have entered illegally, and who have not really integrated into Hungarian society yet. It seems like an instance of vicious-cycle tension: newcomers keeping to themselves because of societal disdain, society feeling disdain because newcomers keep to themselves. Despite this, Chinese restaurants were doing okay business, though not nearly the lunch volume as their US counterparts

Is that laundry on those clothes lines? No, those sheets are are actually strands of noodles being hung out to dry. My roving correspondent shot this photo while cycling along the Sichuan-Tibetan highway. (Hint: he's a recurring character on the blog.)

I wish I had brought a camera to this wet market in Shanghai several weeks ago. Hidden away from the fish mongers, tofu mongers, and vegetable mongers, was a closet-sized room that was making a bit of noise. I peeked inside. Noodle makers were rolling out huge sheets of dough in what looks like an enormous pasta machine, and the same machine would cut strands about 20 feet long. They sold the noodles just a few feet away.

How's that for freshness?

I had always been morbidly curious about fugu, the Japanese blowfish delicacy that is potentially lethal if incorrectly prepared. The scene in my head plays out like this: a renowned Tokyo insider brings me to a renowned secret hideaway for fugu prepared by a renowned chef. I am excited; I will blog about it, post soft-lit photos on Flickr. But the chef has an off night (fight with the wife, perhaps.) Back in my quaint Lonely Planet-recommended ryokan, three hours after the mindblowing meal, tetrodotoxin paralyzes me and I fall over. Death by gourmandism is a noble death, but still a death.

Still, there are plenty of more common ways to pass on. (Struck by Hong Kong's warp speed double deckers, for example.) And the brightly lit, white tableclothed dining room of Lei Garden, being surrounded by Cantonese chitchatting relatives, seemed to be an unlikely set-up for the last minutes of my life. So when passed the plate of dried fugu with what looked like a honey sheen, I thought nothing of plopping a few strips into my mouth. 

Travelers to Shanghai sometimes expect to find a vibrant street food scene that's on par with that of Bangkok, Singapore, Chengdu, and other tropical or subtropical Asian cities. But because of a northern-ish climate (despite the Beijing tendency to think of Shanghai as "the south") and a culture that prefers indoor eating, good street food is hard to find. Zhongshan Lu has a few lamb skewer vendors, but is mainly a tourist trap for shopping and glitzy lights. Yuyuan Bazaar, home of the over-hyped Nanxiang soup dumplings, is just a tourist trap, period.

One place is Shanghai that locals actually frequent is the Muslim market in northern Jing'an, held only on Fridays after prayer service at the Huxi mosque. Starting around 11am, vendors set up their stands of cooked lamb, nan, dried nuts and fruit, and Arabic DVDs. Not to disparage Han ethnic culture, but sometimes it's nice to plant myself in a spot where the locals don't look or speak like the 1.3 billion majority.

(Anhui-style pork belly hot pot)

I didn't visit Huangshan, China's famous Yellow Mountain range, for the food. Jacob wanted to ride in the annual mountain bike festival and I needed to see nature again. (Fellow expats know that Chinese cities can be energy-drainers.) But food, or hints of it, weren't hard to find. 

I tried hard to find a narrative thread for this post, but decided that the photos themselves do a much better job of showing the area. 

Take, for example, this sea of yellow. Isn't this a pretty backdrop for thigh-burning, adrenaline-fueled exercise? We came at the optimal time to find that Yellow Mountain was, in fact, surrounded by lots and lots of yellow. What are these plants and why are they everywhere, from the sides of mountains to people's from yards? Rapeseed. I would not be surprised if China's entire supply of rapeseed oil came from the Huangshan area.

I didn't compete in the mountain bike race, but I did have fun photographing activities by the finish line. Specifically, villagers sitting on plastic stools roasting chicken. I normally don't associate China with good roast chicken because of the lack of ovens in city kitchens; in the countryside a fire is all you need. 

I have written before about Lan Fong Yuen, the food stall in Hong Kong where pantyhose milk tea was supposedly invented. Sure, it's crowded, gets a lot of tourists, and makes you wait just to snuggle next to strangers. But I love that they still make their milk tea the old-fashioned way, by straining it through stocking-like nets. I also love that everyone can watch. Though the tea guy usually moves so fast that I haven't been able to get a better photo than the one I took in 2006:

At least I can console myself with some nice food close-ups. The pork chop bun up top is one of Lan Fong Yuen's specialties. Pork chop buns (a burger with a fried pork cutlet) originated in Macau, but in the past few decades have become standard cha chaan teng fare in Hong Kong. I still like the Macanese version better, since the bread is a crusty Portuguese roll instead of a sesame bun. But the pork matters most. If I'm in the mood for something fried, juicy, and porky, the wrong bread will not deter me.

(Fish tacos, Taqueria El Zorro)

There are few things more wonderful in life than fish tacos from a California taqueria.

San Francisco bookended my 6-week holiday visit to the US. Tampa had great Cuban food and Southern barbecue, and Salinas Valley has perfected grilled meats, but the Bay area had everything I sorely missed while living in Beijing. With the recession in full swing, I spent a week trying out a wide range of cheap eats in and around San Francisco. Here are some new-to-me favorites.

(Tacos al pastor, Taqueria La Morena)

Mexican - In New York you cannot find tacos like these, except maybe if you trekked out to Jackson Heights on the 7 train at 11pm to seek out taco trucks. Most Mexican food in California isn't very Americanized, unlike in the rest of the country. These are simple hand-sized soft tortillas, piled with meat, freshly diced onions, cilantro, and (often) homemade salsas. If you fork out more than $3 for a non-seafood taco, you're paying too much.