Quick Links
Categories
Archives
Calendar
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category: 24
Published On: Mar 07, 2006 03:02 PM
Total entries in this category: 24
Published On: Mar 07, 2006 03:02 PM
Different Tastes
Kunming restaurants are becoming more visibly
multicultural.
The province has 25 ethnic minorities who are
generally considered picturesque and credited with having good music, great
dancing and wildly exotic clothing. Sometimes the Han Chinese also attribute an
appalling lack of hygiene and a taste for combativeness to them, but that's a
whole other topic. Since we last lived in Kunming, minority cuisine is
emerging.
Our very first week here, we were taken to a Dai restaurant featuring banana flowers, river moss, and sticky rice in a pineapple. We've since been to two other Dai restaurants. There are a number of Hui restaurants, and our school even has a Hui student canteen. Though they look just like Han Chinese, the Hui are Muslim, and their cuisine does not include pork. In most other respects, however, it seems like spicy Chinese food. Last night we went to a Uyghur restaurant. The Uyghurs are the heavy-duty Muslims, the ones who don't look even slightly slightly Chinese and wish they weren't part of China at all. Their cuisine is wheat-based and features good bread (not the steamed sponges the Han make), pasta resembling semolina-based spaghetti, and short-grained rice pollo much like Iranians make. As much as we like the grains, it's not an ideal cuisine for us because there is little interest in vegetables.
Still, it's fun to sample different flavors. We still have plenty other minority cuisines to try.
Our very first week here, we were taken to a Dai restaurant featuring banana flowers, river moss, and sticky rice in a pineapple. We've since been to two other Dai restaurants. There are a number of Hui restaurants, and our school even has a Hui student canteen. Though they look just like Han Chinese, the Hui are Muslim, and their cuisine does not include pork. In most other respects, however, it seems like spicy Chinese food. Last night we went to a Uyghur restaurant. The Uyghurs are the heavy-duty Muslims, the ones who don't look even slightly slightly Chinese and wish they weren't part of China at all. Their cuisine is wheat-based and features good bread (not the steamed sponges the Han make), pasta resembling semolina-based spaghetti, and short-grained rice pollo much like Iranians make. As much as we like the grains, it's not an ideal cuisine for us because there is little interest in vegetables.
Still, it's fun to sample different flavors. We still have plenty other minority cuisines to try.
Posted: Sat - November 22, 2003 at 10:51 PM