貴州人怕不辣 ("In Guizhou, people are afraid food is not spicy enough")

"Mi pi" noodles in a sour spicy sauce

Oriental Cuisine (東方饌黔天下)

Dazhi Road Lane 46 #27, Dazhi District, Taipei (MRT Dazhi - surprise!)

台北市大直區大直街46巷27號

In 2002 and 2003 I lived in Guizhou (貴州), a southwest-central province of China. Specifically, the city of Zunyi (遵義), in the north part not far from the Moutai brewery and, further up, Chongqing.

When I lived there, for most lunch meals that I didn't eat at the school, I would go out for either the town's famous lamb noodles (遵義羊肉面) or get something called "mi pi", or "rice skin" noodles. Like the wide "bantiao" noodles popular in Hakka cuisine in Taiwan (板條), they're basically soft, white, wide, thin noodles - but these are much wider than bantiao and served in a much spicier sauce with ground lamb or pork and vinegary undertones. It tends to be spicier, reminiscent of the flavors of Chongqing hot pot, in the north and more sour, reminiscent of Miao (苗族) cuisine in the south where there are more ethnic minorities - mainly Miao but also Dong and others.

Mi pi quickly became my favorite food IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, second only to dried chilis stuffed with rice gluten and baked until the chili skin crackled. I've tried every Chinese restaurant that does a good job with southwestern Chinese fare - Sichuan, Hunan, Chongqing, Yunnan - and never found my mi pi outside of Guizhou. It was so simple and yet so perfect. And I could only have it in Guizhou - it was too simple, too local, too basic, to be served elsewhere it seemed.

Until now. 

苗寨乾鍋雞

                        

The other day I read a review of "Oriental Cuisine" in the Taipei Times (linked above) and thought "I must go there immediately". It was actually my husband who found the review, but I was the one squealing giddily over it. Finally! MY FOOD! I could have MY FOOD again! I didn't like a lot about China - I got pneumonia twice in one year after all - but I loved, loved, LOVED the food, especially the amazing yet underrated cuisine of my "home state" of Guizhou. It was like Sichuanese food only better. As though Sichuanese food could get better (actually, it can).

There's even a saying: 四川人不怕辣，湖南人辣不怕，貴州人怕不辣. In Sichuan, the people are not afraid of spicy food. In Hunan, the people of spicy food they are not afraid. In Guizhou, the people are afraid food is not spicy enough!

And it is so true. The variety and depth of spice in cool, humid, mountainous and poverty-stricken Guizhou (all true: they also say that "in Guizhou you cannot walk three steps without going uphill, it cannot go three days without raining, and the people do not have three pennies to rub together") is truly a magical, life-changing thing. I tear up just thinking about it - and not from the chilis. The sweat on my brow from a fiery soup steeped in chili oil. The long-term burning of the dried chilis used in many dishes, especially when tempered with nothing but rice gluten. The use of grilling, stewing and adding sour or bitter notes, the sharpness black pepper and flower pepper (花椒, a personal favorite of mine and found in all good Sichuanese food) created a cuisine that I grew very attached to.

貴州式公保雞

Unfortunately, Guizhou cuisine, for reasons I cannot explain, has not caught fire - pun intended - abroad the way Sichuanese and Hunanese cuisines have. Why? Why?! I honestly don't know.  So, after leaving Guizhou, I'd resigned myself to never enjoying that particular beauty again, unless I were to return for a culinary visit (which I fully intend to do, even if I will never again live in China).

And then, there was magic.

A restaurant - in Taipei!!!!!!! - specializing in Guizhou food with a guy who had studied it in depth and in meticulous detail at the helm? Oh, pinch me! Bring my smelling salts! Bring my stuffed dried chilis and my mi pi sauce! BRING IT!

So, it was really not an option: we had to eat there as soon as possible. Which we did, on Sunday.  We ordered many of their most famous dishes, I got my mi pi (not seen on the menu, but he could whip it up for me easily enough) and I had a lot of great banter with the chef about the wonderfulamazingness of the food of Guizhou. Either he was humoring me or he was genuinely pleased to meet another fan of the cuisine who had been there and knew what she was talking about.

The chef explains the history of Miao dry chicken pot as my friend Cathy gazes into the wok

We also ordered a meat dish cooked with a special root which has a bitter-ish taste (one of the only bitter tastes I can handle) and a fishy smell - and not in a good way. I'd seen it many times in Guizhou, and at the time didn't like it. With five years of Chinese cuisine under my belt, I was ready for another go. This time, I can say I honestly liked it. My, how things change.

Scary root dish that is a little bitter and smells of fish

We ordered some of the cheaper Moutai - not the "ten thousand NT a bottle" stuff, but good stuff - to drink to our amazing meal. Despite not being the most expensive kind, it did make us a little lightheaded.

And the meal was amazing. This chef is the real deal - he knows what he's doing and the food delivers.

苗家酸湯魚

 We also got the Miao sour fish soup (above), which comes with a "dipping soup" for the fish slices - amazingly boneless - shown below. So good. This reminded me less of Zunyi - mi pi and lamb noodle territory - and more of Kaili, the Miao stronghold in the south of the province, not far from Guanxi.

Good decor, too.

All I can say is that if you live in Taipei like spicy food, you have to eat here. If you don't, I will punch you in the face.

And now, please enjoy some of my photos from Guizhou - this trip down memory lane brought to you by the fine folks at Oriental Cuisine. Just to give you a little cultural and landscape background to the food that you WILL eat because I will MAKE you eat it. You don't have a choice, sorry.

Kaili textile market

Downtown Guiyang - China Construction indeed

A "Chinese horoscope" game in Zunyi - you get a lollipop that looks like the animal
the spinner lands on

Somewhere in Zunyi

Minority woman (Dong, perhaps?)

Phoenix Park in Zunyi

Zunyi wet market spice shop

A very poor area in northern Guizhou

Villager in a Dong minority area

Miao woman outside Kaili, preparing to go to a wedding (which I was invited to, attended,
but could not take photos of as it was too dark - it was amazing)

Zunyi's main wet market

Miao woman outside Kaili

Miao girl and her mother dressed up in a village outside Kaili (we were going to a wedding)

View from the highway between Guiyang and Zunyi, central Guizhou

Miao mother and child Chong'an in southwest Guizhou

Southwest Guizhou

Miao textiles for sale (I own several)

Way up by the Chongqing border

Capital city of Guiyang

Near Chishui (north Guizhou)

Weird House

Welcome to the house of WEIRD FOREIGN PEOPLE

Just for fun on a sunny morning, I wanted to make the quick observation that culture differences span not only attitudes, interpretations, actions and reactions - and when at home they extend far beyond what you do at home. They also affect what you do to your home.

I'm obviously not the first person to notice this: my husband has noted that in Korea, people pump a lot of money into their cars and comparatively little into their homes. I once heard an expat in China muse that the money we'd spend on a new floor, a nice print for our wall and a paint job would be spent, in China, on a designer bag - the walls could stay dingy and the floor could stay cracked or peeling. That's not always true, of course, but there's a grain of truth to it.

What I've found interesting is that in the US, people often assume, when we talk about where we live and what our home is like, that "Asian people decorate in an Asian way, and we decorate in an American way." I don't know exactly what they picture, but I get the feeling that a lot of Americans think that everyone in Asia lives here:

from here

Or if they don't have money, here:

from this site - go visit so they get traffic and don't sue me

You know, this idea that I'll always have a couch and coffeetable and they'll have tatami mats and lanterns or something, with red walls and round doors, and a futon and those old Chinese chairs and they'll sit around playing zither and drinking tea out of impossibly tiny cups while they talk about Confucius. Or something.      

Whereas it seems the exact opposite is true. Young travelers who come to Asia to set up shop as English teachers generally don't have enough money to live anywhere much better than a horrible cement monstrosity (although some luck out) - maybe not as bad as the one pictured but pretty bad. I lived in one. Those who do have money would, very often, prefer to live here:

from this site

I know I would.

And most Taiwanese people I know would laugh at that and instead jump at the chance to live here:

from this no longer functional site

Most people don't have the money for such interiors, but if you look into what people do with their decorating budget, and what their dreams are, you will find a stark difference: and it's really not what you might have imagined.

A lot of people visit our home, now that I have one that isn't horrible, and we've gotten some rather surprised reactions to how I've chosen to decorate and even interact with my living space that goes against cultural norms in Taiwan.

I do want to keep this lighthearted - I'm not trying to make fun of anyone here, except in a friendly way, but here goes. A short list of things locals have said when visiting my apartment:

1.) "You don't have a TV? But...what do you do in the evenings?"

2.) "AAAAH! CAT! Can you make him go away?"

3.) "Your window is open? Without a screen? I never do that! If you do that it's too cold, or it's too hot." (We do have window screens, I just usually open the window fully so the cat can go out on the casement and I can get to my herbs, and I like the open air feeling. Apparently a fully open window is a weird thing).

4.) "Wow. Why did you paint so many colors on your walls?" (Instead of the usual white or cream color you see in apartments)

5.) "Even if I didn't know you I would  know that foreigners live here." "Why?" "Because IT'S TOO CHINESE!"

6.) "You sit on the floor?" (we have a tatami dining area with floor cushions). "I thought white people liked chairs."

7.) "Oh, no TV?"

Yes, we sit on the floor.

8.) (friend's wife, to my friend) "Psst, there's no TV?" "No." "Really?" "Really. She told me before." "Wow."

9.) "Why don't you have a TV?"

10.) "There are so many pictures on the walls. I have no pictures."

11.) "Why do you have this? This is Chinese."

12.) "You don't wear your shoes inside! I thought foreigners didn't take their shoes off."

13.) "You have too many spices."

14.) "So, what's your rent?"

15.) "Where's your TV?.....oh."

16.) "Why do you want curtains made of chiffon. [that was not really a question.] That's too light. You should use this heavy fabric. See the nice flowers on it? I also have it in shiny gold. Do you want tassels? No? I have lots of tassels. Oh." (from my tailor, who made our curtains)

16.) "Is your TV in another roo....oh."

17.) (looking at my cat) "You have a cat?"

18.) "WHERE DID YOU GET THIS? It is too local. We don't have this. It's too Asian." (referring to a basket we own that used to be a typical household item in Taiwan)

Not our basket, but close enough. I'm too lazy to take a photo.

19.) "I like your house but I prefer Western style in my house."

20.) "Wow. Your coffeemaker! But you can't make lattes!"

Of course, not every comment has been critical - and most of these were meant in friendly banter. Surprise, even, that we'd choose a more Asian style for a lot of our decorating flourishes, that we would eschew a TV, that we do take our shoes off, or that we'd open the window all the way to let the air in, and only close the screen if there are too many bugs. And, of course, rather than a tiny, yippy Maltese we have a cat who appears to have multiple personality disorder (although, honestly, don't all cats?). They're not surprised that we don't go down the typical route of blue or black vinyl couches, a Fat Buddha calendar, a round dining table and a glass-topped coffee table (and a side table made of yellow wood topped in thick, greenish plastic) with a huge TV on the wall, but I think what they often expect is something more Western, you know, like they'd choose and like they imagine we'd choose because we are Western.

It's always interesting to visit other peoples' homes and see what they've done with their interiors - and I look forward to being able to make observations.                                                                 

Muppet Hao!

Now that everyone seems to have forgotten about the Wang family - as I am sure those in power had hoped - this story on the famous A-Tsai (阿才) restaurant as Taipei's next urban renewal victim is worth reading.

Here's my take on Taipei city politics.

I really think this says it all. Derp derp derp.

Restaurant Review: Yin Yi (銀翼/ "Silver Wings")

Yin Yi / Silver Wings Restaurant
銀翼餐廳
(02) 2341-7799
Jinshan S. Road Sec. 2 #18 2nd floor / Jinshan Xinyi intersection
金山南路2段18號2樓 / 金山信義路口
10am-2pm, 5pm-9pm
MRT CKS Memorial Hall (you could also get there from Zhongxiao Xinsheng without much trouble. It's very close to the Xinyi end of Yongkang Street).


Notes: Reservations recommended, great for large groups, some specialty dishes need to be ordered in advance (a few hours ahead)


Four words: really tasty, great service. Here's a rundown in Chinese.


So, OMG, I managed to find a good restaurant recommended by a student that has not already been reviewed in the Taipei Times! Yin Yi is locally famous, although not really well-known among expats (obviously, the restaurants that get to be known among us foreigners tend to be the ones that end up in guidebooks, which are often good, sometimes not). Rather like Rendezvous (龍都酒樓, another gem), local reactions to my eating there run along the lines of "it's famous! How did you know about it?!" with the strong implication that all Taiwanese in Taipei have heard of these places but it's expected that foreigners have not.

清炒鱔魚 - slivered braised eel (or something like eel)

Yin Yi specializes in Yangzhou food (from the province of Jiangsu, but cuisine from here is apparently closer to Shanghainese or Zhejiang food), although locals I know have mistakenly said that it's a "Zhejiang" restaurant or even a "Shanghai" restaurant. I'll be honest - the food was amazing, but if you told me "this is Zhejiang food" and not "this is Yangzhou food", I'd be all "Oh, OK." The three cuisines are really very similar. I wouldn't really know. I know a fair amount about regional Chinese cuisine, but I'm not an expert.

鍋粑蝦仁 - shrimp and puffed rice in tomato sauce

But anyway. The food. It was excellent! We had three kinds of dumplings cooked on pine needles, which give the dumplings a subtle but unique aroma and flavor. I highly recommend any one or all of the three.

小籠菜餃 (the second photo) - all the dumplings cooked on pine needles are recommended!

We had the famous shrimp pot with tomato sauce and puffed rice, which is a good dish to order if you're entertaining visiting friends or family members (or clients) - very easy on foreign palates. We had the "shanyu", which is like eel ("manyu"), which had an interesting texture. There was a shredded tofu and dried meat dish that, by east coast Chinese standards was spicy, but to this woman who lived in Guizhou and ate Sichuan-style food for a year, was not spicy at all, but still good. It was hard to tell what was tofu and what was meat, because it was all quite tender. We also had a sour cabbage salad and the red bean paste in fried tasty thing (it has a real name, but I prefer this one) as well as their famous noodle dish （蔥開煨麵), which was fantastic, but I don't have a photo. It's thick noodles in a cloudy soup with dried meat and shrimp: delicious!

紅椒肉絲炒干絲 - dried slivered pork, I think with tofu, and some chili

Finally, we had the duck. It's served as something between Beijing duck and fatty pork gua bao (the dish for which you put slices of braised fatty pork into sesame buns): a roast duck, more dry and not as 'lacquered' as Beijing duck is torn to shreds, and the shreds dipped lightly in salt and put into soft white buns. Absolutely delicious, and a real treat. The salt really made the dish: don't skimp.

香酥全鴨 - duck with bread. You can see what we did to this poor duck, who is now just a carcass (in our fridge, because we took it home - Imma make SOUP!)

Everything was  really just...good. I'm not sure how else to describe it: think of visiting a new city and having your friends there introduce you to their favorite place that isn't in guidebooks. Or going out with a group to a new restaurant and having just a fantabulous meal together. Think of a well-made, well-served meal where you leave thinking "that was so yummy, my stomach is so full, I'm going to get cramps if I try to walk!" That's really the tone the food at Yin Yi sets. For me, that's the hallmark of a good Chinese meal.

I'd also like to note Yinyi's fantastic service. These folks could really go teach Song Chu a thing or two about cultivating service that will keep people coming back. We got a free dish because I said the boss (or a boss, it's hard to tell), who also took care of our table looked like my boss - and he did. To the point where I was startled for a second. He brought a free dish (the sour cabbage salad) and said "it looks like you don't like your boss, and I don't want you to not like me!"


                           
                                               拌白菜心 - sour cabbage salad with peanuts

When they realized it was Brendan's birthday - our reason for going out - they helped us with the cake I'd brought from My Sweetie Pie and gave us a plate of mint candies and almond roca (although we were so stuffed already that it was hard to eat it)! They didn't pressure us right away with the check, and they didn't try to overload us with food: what they said should be enough for 8 people was just about enough, but we ended up ordering more. At some less ingenuous restaurants - not sure if that's the right word but we'll go with it - they'll purposely upsell and oversell in the interest of raising the bill, not what you actually want to eat. At Yin yi, they recommended the dishes that they were truly famous for and didn't kill us with volume.

We killed ourselves with volume, ordering three extra dishes that we could barely finish!


It was never difficult to get a waiter to come over (something that is a problem at a few good restaurants in Taipei) and we never felt rushed, bothered, upsold or kicked out even though we stayed until closing time, even long after we'd finished our order and were having cake and Brendan was opening gifts.

                                            豆沙鍋餅 - red bean paste in tasty fried thing


All in all, it was a fantastic evening and I strongly recommend this restaurant to anyone and everyone. Especially for foreigners who like Chinese food but want dishes that are palatable to Western diners: this isn't American Chinese, not at all, but the flavors are the sort that Westerners can enjoy, even if they aren't used to the many variations of Chinese cuisine.


Now, as it was my dear husband's birthday, enjoy a few birthday pics!

Taiwanese Opera: Fun vs. Fine Art

It's no secret that I'm a fan of Taiwanese opera (歌仔戲), even if I post about it far less often than I do temple parades and other festivals. 

This time of year happens to be a great one for Taiwanese opera fans, enthusiasts and people who are just interested and want to check it out. Baosheng Dadi's birthday was this past week, and Bao'an Temple, as a part of its Baosheng Cultural Festival, puts on several operas around the time of the festival: all free, all by good performers, all outdoors in the open stage area directly across from the main temple (which is where firewalking also takes place).

Then, in May, the theater on the top floor of Yongle Market on Dihua Street (yes, there is a theater up there) will start a series of not free but still very good operas that you can buy tickets for online. What's great about these performances is that you can learn about the story ahead of time - drop by Yongle Market or pick up a brochure at Bao'an Temple, where they are often available - and it will list which operas are playing on which days, what tickets cost and how to buy them, and a synopsis of each opera. The summaries are in Chinese, but if you can read Chinese or get a friend to help, you can go in knowing the basic outlines of the story you'll be watching. The operas on Dihua Street will last through June and July, with the Xiahai City God Temple celebrating the City God's birthday and more.

If you've never tried Taiwanese opera, or can read Chinese but are too intimidated by an opera in Taiwanese to check it out, but are interested - now is the time! (Note: for the outside, free operas, lines form as early as 1pm, for some performances you could get away with lining up at 4pm, and chairs are distributed around 5:30 or 6 for a 7pm showing. Show up early or you'll be stuck all the way in the back. You can put a bag down to save a space in line and get those around you to watch it for you and explore the area if you don't want to stand in line for that long.

Me and Sasha waiting in line at Bao'an Temple. I've got the all-important brochure in hand.

I'm lucky to have a local friend who is passionate about Taiwanese opera to occasionally take me along, explain a few details through the show and let me know if something good is coming up (with a story she can fill me in on beforehand). Most younger Taiwanese folks are not as into opera as Sasha is, but if you have such a friend, see if they'd be willing to introduce you to this art form.

I'm not quite sure why I like Taiwanese opera so much, because while I do enjoy Western opera (Tosca, Aida and The Ring of the Nibelung - especially Rheingold - are favorites), I never managed to get into Beijing opera or really any "Chinese opera" form from China - although I don't mind Sichuanese opera. Generally, though - too much caterwauling, not enough feeling. Too much screeching and clanging, not enough melody.

Taiwanese opera is, however, different. It is more melodic, with less screaming and more music. I find it to be more aurally pleasant overall, rather than the sound of swinging an angry cat at a metal pole.

I like it because it's more interactive - almost democratic. Taiwanese opera, while it has the trappings of a rarefied form of fine art, is really entertainment for the masses. You don't go to fancy theaters in fancy dress like a tourist herded through Beijing and sit quietly while performers wow you. You sit in the open air - much of the time - in jeans, with a corn dog and a bag of guava slices you bought outside - and pay little or nothing to be entertained.

Performers regularly add "au courant" jokes into the libretto: at one point in the opera I saw last night - 薛丁山與樊梨花 - General Xue Dingshan asked what to do: he didn't want to marry the non-Han sorceress Fan Lihua, but he was forced into promising to do so. What could he say that would allow him to please her, stay honest and not break a promise?


"Why don't you like her proposal on Facebook?" Fan Lihua's servant said.


I know - ha ha ha - but we're talking mass entertainment, and in the middle of an opera full of glittering costumes and live music, it was kind of funny. The same servant later on came out wearing big sunglasses as a "disguise" and later still wandered around "drunk" with a tallboy of Asahi in hand.

Performers regularly break the fourth wall, as well. One looked at us after the younger sister of one of the general's wives stormed off and we started clapping, and said "don't you clap for her!" General Xue himself turned to the audience at one point to ask what we would do if we had three wives and couldn't please all of them no matter what decision we made. I wanted to shout "就選一個太太而已！" but held back. In the middle of a scene, performers will regularly wink at the audience, or "shush" them, or ask them for backup.

I like this - it shows Taiwanese opera's roots in entertaining people, not being an art form consumed merely by the upper classes (take a look around any audience for an open-air opera at Bao'an Temple, and your first thought will not be "these are the upper classes". This is what the neighborhood middle-class obasans do for fun in the evening). I don't feel like I have to dress nicely or wait for "intermission" to get a glass of wine. While both are art forms, I feel entirely different at a Taiwanese opera than I did at the opera I saw in Prague (Rigoletto) years ago, or the operas I've seen at the Kennedy Center.

Most Taiwanese operas will begin with a warm-up of sorts - Fu, Lu and Shou (the three gods you see on top of temples) will make an appearance, and you might see 跳加官 (the dancing god in a mask), 喜神 (the two "men" in red robes) and 麻姑 (dancing women with fans). 


There are photos of all of these above. 

You might also see a 財神 (Wealth God - the one who "comes to your door" on Chinese New Year) who might throw out gold-foil wrapped candies from a gold ingot into the crowd.


These aren't the main part of the opera, but it's believed that an opera can't be performed well if these short performances don't take place first. It's like "blessing" the opera, if you will.

The opera we saw - Xue Dingshan and Fan Lihua (薛丁山興樊梨花) was about General Xue - famous for not only his marriage to Fan Lihua, but also for accidentally killing his father (which was depicted in a later scene). Fan Lihua, a non-Han woman who knows magic, is told that her fate is to be Xue Dingshan's wife.

"Her kung fu is better than his" (as explained Sasha), so she manages to capture him, and then sings a song about how she's too shy to tell him she loves him and wants to marry him - within his earshot, of course, and after he's captured her, so she's fooling nobody.

He doesn't want to marry her but the other choice is to fight her again, which he also doesn't want to do, so he swears to marry her. He then tries to escape, but she uses her magic to make his promise to stay come true (he tries to leave but can't due to floods and storms). This is supposed to happen three times, but it was condensed into one for this play.

They marry, but for whatever reason Xue Dingshan doesn't love Fan Lihua (gee, I wonder why!) and "divorces" her (apparently you could divorce a woman in ancient Chinese folk tales by saying "I'm leaving").

Then Xue changes his mind and they re-marry, only to be divorced again when Lihua's godson arrives, and he's almost as old as she is. I'm not sure why this is important, but it's implied she keeps bad company and he leaves again.

Fan Lihua then lures him back by pretending to be dead. At her funeral, Xue Dingshan is in tears, and Fan Lihua "reappears", and they marry yet again, in front of her funeral altar, or whatever you call it in English. Hooray! His other wives, who disliked her before, are happy now because they need her magic and want her back.

Then it's over, everyone comes out to bow, and someone gives General Xue's "old counselor" a giant teddy bear with a pink bow on it, which is hilarious.

Next month: 我愛何東獅, about Song Dynasty poet Su Dongpo's "terrible wife who is not tender to her husband", and after that, 紅樓夢, which, if you don't know this classic story, go look it up!