Two More Chinese Beers

While we’re on the subject of beer, here’s a couple of other brews we tried while we were in China:

Dali beer – local to Yunnan Province, although – would you believe it, it’s produced by Carlsberg, since they bought out the Dali Beer Group in 2003. It’s a nice refreshing beer anyway – as long as it’s served cold, which turned out to be something of a rarity in Lijiang…



The beer we ended up drinking mostly (if only because it actually came chilled) was Snow beer – a light, crisp beer although with very little flavour.



We likened it to Bud Light, which is a co-incidence as, according to Reuters, just this year Snow has taken over Bud Light to become the World’s biggest selling beer. And I’d never heard of it before we came to China…

Tsingtao

It’s Friday afternoon and so my mind is wandering towards beer…

One of the pleasures of travelling is trying out the local brew – Our holiday last week was our first time in China and so the first thing I ordered when I got to the hotel bar, was of course a Tsingtao – probably the world’s best known Chinese beer (and I base that on the fact that it's the only Chinese beer I've ever seen in Chinese restaurants I've been to in the UK - not very scientific I know).



I do like Tsingtao – it has a sweet edge to it… and of course it tastes even better when you’re in China!

Happy weekend everyone.


Tsingtao Beer - http://www.tsingtaobeer.com/

Yunnan Cuisine

We’re just back from a week’s holiday in Yunnan Province in South-West China. Yunnan Province has the largest number of ethnic minorities in China (more than half of the total Chinese minority population according to the Lonely Planet). The cuisine, therefore, is incredibly varied, taking its influences from many directions. Its proximity to Sichuan Province means the dishes tend to have a healthy dose of chilli and being mushroom season when we were there ensured that various types of funghi featured heavily on the menus also.

Our first stop-off was Lijiang – a beautiful town teaming with tourists, and a plethora of restaurants to choose from.



Our first lunch was at a little restaurant, which I was told was called Yi mi yang guang yu fu situated on what is most commonly know as ‘Jiu Ba Jie’ or ‘Bar Street’, where we ordered up some local goodies:



Baba is a type of bread cake that is made on street stalls all over Lijiang – it comes either sweet or savoury, so we tried the savoury version to accompany our feast. For any traditional Brits out there – it tastes a bit like a suet pudding:



Also on the table was Dongba Chicken with Mushrooms & Chilli (Dongba being the culture of the Naxi minority – the most prominent ethnic group in Lijiang)



Spicy Yak – bursting with an amalgam of flavours from the various herbs and spices in it, and our first experience of the tongue-numbing Sichuan peppercorn!



Lijiang Pork – with strong ginger and chilli flavours



And an interesting addition to our vegetable repertoire – a type of local fresh water seaweed which, like everything else on the table, was delicious.



What a good start to our China holiday!