What to eat
Introduction
As the famous saying goes that gourmet food and love should be cherished in life. Entering the home of gourmet food--Emei, Sichuan Province, you may not want to leave once you come since there is a lot of delicious food.
1. Siwei Boiled Dumpling
While waiting for the dumplings, you can have some pork chop soup with shredded kelp, a perfect match with Siwei dumplings. This meal set is of reasonable price and suitable for breakfast.
2. Cold Skewers
Since it’s improper to have something cold in winter, the cold skewers are best in summer. It’s also a cheap choice with just less than 1 RMB to get one skewer.
3. Doufunao (Tofu Pudding)
Pour a bowl of tender tofu into the thick soy milk and smash it with a big iron spoon.Then serve a bowl of doufunao with many condiments. Tasty! The base of Emeidoufunao is made of pork chop soup. Added with several special condiments like soy sauce, MSG, Sichuan pepper powder, chili oil, ginger and garlic syrup, peanuts, fried soybeans, pickled vegetables, scallions, steamed beef or fried crispy meat, the doufunao is full of Sichuan flavor. Doufunao without any meat is called Vegetarian Doufunao; with steamed beef, Beef Doufunao; with steamed chitterlings, Chitterling Doufunao; with eggs, Egg Doufunao. Doufunao can be found in many small shops and the most famous ones are QinglongDoufunao in Shuyuan Street, and The Ju’sDoufunao near the fountain (Penshuichi).
4. Cao’s Smoked Ducks
While enjoying the beauty of Mt. Emei and Buddhist culture, the local snacks may also make you impressive. When night falls, the Food Village, at the side of Mt. Emei Grand Hotel in the low-elevation area, is ablaze with lights amidst a hubbub of voices.Malatang (a kind of spicy hot pot), grilled skewers and other dozens of snacks can be found here, satisfying your appetite and feasting your eyes. Among the many snacks, the smoked duck, a very common cold dish has attracted a lot of tourists. The most famous smoked duck in Emei is the Cao’s smoked duck, named after the family name of the cook.
After more than 200 years’ development of Emei smoked ducks, around 100 stalls can be seen in the downtown area. Smoked ducks are rosy, smooth, tender and tasty, with a little smell of smoke.With a lasting scent, a smoked duck is a good match for wine. Anyone who has tasted Emei smoked duck will never forget its taste. It is such an equally famousduck with LeshanSweet-Skin Duck! Smoked and roasted, the smoked ducks are scent but not dry and will not cause internal heat. The scent is special, like that of preserved pork and sauced pork, going well with rice.
5. Emei-style Barbecue
What is barbecue? Stick meat or vegetables into skewers, and put the skewers onto a shelf under which are charcoals or other furnace.When the meat or vegetables become golden-coated with scent, here comes the dish with special smoky taste. There are two kinds of barbecue: one is done over direct heat while the other is done over indirect heat.
Emei-style barbecue are mostly direct-heat ones. Fresh food materials are barbecued with special condiments over direct heat, spilling scent that keeps tourists from leaving. When selecting food materials, local people are used to select the in-season ones, among which chicken are the favorite barbecue material, as their breast, wings, drumsticks, buttocks even skins are all favored by local people.Of course, beef, lamb, fish, rabbit meat and seafood are also yummy material that cannot be missed.
6. Buddhist Cuisine
Buddhist cusine in Mt. Emei is nationally well-known, with those served in Wannian Temple among the best. The shape, color, fragrance and flavor are so delicate that the “fish”, “beef”, and “pork” resemble the real ones and are hard to distinguish.These vegetarian dishes match the monks’ plain taste. Every dish of the feast is elaborately made by well-skilled master chefs in the temple. People who have enjoyed the feast all sing highly of the dishes.
All dishes of Wannian Temple’s vegetarian feast are made of vegetarian foods such as flour, rice noodles, snow-preserved Konjac, bamboo shoots, beans, vegetables and fruits by the cooking method of steaming, boiling, stir-frying, and stewing, with vegetable oil and other condiments.
Meal time in Wannian Temple: 7:00 a.m.-7:30 a.m., 11:00 a.m.-11:30 a.m. and 18:00-18:30. The price of each dish ranges from less than 10 RMB to less than 20 RMB. Please note that it is not appropriate to waste food in temples.
7. Bobo Chicken
Bobo chicken is very popular in Chengdu in recent years. Its name is fresh to people. Actually, Bobo is a kind of crockpot with red and golden dragon patterns outside. Specially made meat and vegetable skewers are served in the flavorful broth flavored with Sichuan pepper and chili oil. The self-serving approach can have diners enjoy the flavor with special fun. After years of development, besides tender chicken, more food materials are served, with meat and vegetable, spicy and plain. The Rattan pepper Bobo chicken in Xianghexiang Food is highly recommended.
Over 100 years ago, Bobo chicken originated from Leshan, a rural town in Sichuan at that time.There’s a rustic feel to this dish. As the dish is spicy, refreshing, convenient to eat and uniquely-flavored, it has been favored by people in Sichuan. In 1990, Bobo Chicken won the award of the Best Street Foods in Chengdu and in 1991, it was named of Quality and Famous Foods by the municipal government of Chengdu and then became popular throughout China.As Bobo chicken is convenient to eat and has many flavors, it can be served both as a snack food with chicken soup rice, and an individual meal, with yummy flavor and reasonable price.
8. Ye Er Ba (Glutinous Rice Cake Wrapped in Leaves)
Ye Er Ba, also known as Ai Mo, was originally a traditional snack for rural people in the western part of Sichuan, which is often served during the Tomb-Sweeping Day. It is named as Ye Er Ba because it is a steamed glutinous rice cake filled with stuffings wrapped in leaves. In 1940, the Tianzhai Snack Bar in Xindu District, Chengdu, improved Ai Mo elaborately and renamed it as Ye Er Ba. With fine color, unique shape and refreshing flavor, Ye er Ba is listed among top Sichuan snacks. The stuffings of Emei’s Ye Er Ba contain white sugar, peanuts, walnuts, sesame and sometimes meat.
9. Cao’s Liangfen
"Liangfen" is a kind of cold starch jelly with a spicy-hot sauce. It is generally translucent and thick. Liangfen is usually made from mung bean starch, but may also be made from pea or potato starch.
The most famous Liangfen shop in Emeishan City is the Cao’s in Xizheng Street. Though a small snack bar, it has attracted a lot of diners from other cities. The Cao’s Liangfen looks like fresh Konjac with better texture. Added with its own home-made sauce, the flavor is not just commonly sour and spicy, but with a special refreshing taste. Such a savory dish costs only 5 RMB per bowl, very fair. It is worth mentioning that there is another special kind of Liangfen called “clapping hands”, which is served with, rather than bowls, but your hands! Liangfen is sliced into a palm size one to put on your hands, with condiments onside of it. Diners can enjoy it while walking. Really interesting!
10. Emei Shredded Swamp Eel
Emei shredded swamp eel is also a local dish that you cannot miss. Swamp eel is known for its fresh favor and nutrition as a good food material. It helps invigorate Qi, nourish blood, replenish spleen yang, tonify liver and kidney as well as dispel wind and remove obstruction in the meridians etc.
This dish is made of cleaned and shredded swamp eels with yellow bean sprouts, rice noodles, garlic bolts, Pi Xian chili bean sauce and peppers. It is worth mentioning that local people love to add Patchouli into their dishes, so it is with Emei Shredded Swam Eel. Amidst the strong flavor of chili, patchouli brings a gust of wind to the diners. What’s more, the crispy fried minced pork is another savory element of this dish.
11. Qiaojiao Beef (EatingBeef with Crossed Legs)
This is another dished favored by people from all ages. The cooked belly, tendons, chitterlings and tongue of cattle are poured into cattle bone soup with in-season vegetables, and served with pepper-made condiment sauce. The beef is steamed with salt, MSG, spice, oil and pepper, and served with chopped green onion and parsley. This dish has some medicinal effect and can be found in many snack bars in the city.
It is said that, in the early 1930s, when life was hard for the people, there lived an old doctor, Doctor Luo, who was good at traditional Chinese medicine. With a hope to save the people, he decocted medicine at the side of the street. His decoction could not only prevent disease and quench thirst, but also treat common illness like cold, stomachache and toothache. One day, he found that the rich people deserted offal of cattle into the river, he felt very wasteful, and so he picked up and cleaned the offal and poured them into his decoction. The soup was so surprisingly tasty that along with its curing effects, it attracted a lot of people to drink. For the popularity, there always lack seats. But people still preferred to come, even just sited with cross-legged on the stage in front of the gate enjoying the delicious soup. That’s why it gained the name as “Qiaojiao” (which means sit with cross-legged ) Beef.
After years and generations of development, Qiaojiao Beef has already become a widely known local snack. As a medicinal dish to tonify people’s organs with animals’ organs, it has greatly enhanced the level of this local dish. The soup of Yang’s Qiaojiao Beef, besides the use of traditional recipe, adopts medicinal dates, dried goji berries and Chinese angelica, along with over 20 herbs, making it more nutrient. Now, the Yang’s Qiaojiao Beef are well developed with five characteristics of savory soup, tender ingredients, body strengthening, beauty maintaining and diversified serving ways.
