Sunday 12 February 2012

The China & Germany Round-up

Now that i'm back in Melbourne i thought i'd do a quick summary of my favourite meals from my 5 weeks away.

Starting with China:

Everything i ate at Mr & Mrs Bund





Yak Milk Drinking Yoghurt

I couldn't go to China without drinking bucket loads of tea. This was my favourite teapot and pu'er my favourite leaf tea. I am currently addicted to ginger tea! 

My favourite dish in China. Yunnan flat rice noodles with mixed vegetables and chilli. From Naxi Snacks 88 in Lijiang. Coincidentally this restaurant was the best of the trip - local food at local prices - $7 for 4 dishes and drinks.

Best breakfast! Yunnan rice noodles with vegetable pickle and chilli.

Best street snack - Baba. In various forms - savoury with an egg cracked on top or sweet with rose jam and red bean paste.

Best (and cheapest) lunch. From Xizhou market. Cold rice and yellow bean noodles with peanuts, chilli, shallots,  bean sprouts and a delicious tangy dressing

I wish i could make: fresh rice noodles!

 Favourite dishes from Dashu Wujie

 Always sure to please:
Egg fried rice and vegetable jiaozi from Din Tai Fung
 Now onto Germany. The surprise country... who would have thought there would be so many vegetarian options in Germany, the land of meat, meat and more meat??? Virtually every menu had vegetarian options marked with a V or a green leaf. Most yoghurts in the supermarket did not contain gelatine - even the diet ones, and there was always the option of pretzels or a plethora of dark grainy delicious breads when hungry.
This is KiBa - cherry and banana juice. Sounds gross but was delicious! Tasted like a Nudie. Germany had so many more juices on offer than we have in Australia.

Falafel doner. I did not expect to find so many falafels in Germany! There is a massive Turkish population so doner shops were everywhere! They use a flattened, toasted bun rather than pita and it was filled with falafel, tomato, lettuce, coleslaw and yoghurt sauce. For only 3 euro it was a cheap, filling and delicious meal.

Spaetzle. Delicious german wheat noodles. This dish was with a chilli sauce and was delicious! Spaetzle could be found in the fridge section of the supermarket for a couple of euro or you can make it yourself. Spaetzle is like pasta but has a higher egg:flour ratio.

So i never thought i'd be posting a picture of something from McDonald's here after not eating McDonald's food for about 10 years but in Germany they have a veggie burger for 1.99 euro and it isn't too bad.

The bun sucks. But the patty had visible chunks of carrot, capsicum, corn and potato and was obviously deep fried rather than grilled with all the meaty burgers. It contained lettuce, cheese, tomato sauce and mayo. Obviously not the greatest eat of the trip but when starving at 9pm on a long train journey with only a 20 minute stopover, sometimes you have to compromise!

Mmmm Gluhwein. The perfect antidote to a -20 degree day!

Leipziger Lerche. These delicious little tarts were filled with cherry jam and almond paste. Delicious!

Overall it was a great trip and i wish i had taken more photos! Other delicious food included ma po tofu, fish fragrant eggplant (it does not contain fish), milk tea bubble cups, hot pretzels, mezzomix - coke & fanta combined, fresh tomato soup with homemade bread and i'm sure i'm missing some things!

Anyway now it's back to reality and hopefully a bit more cooking!

Sarah xx