Into China

Kashgar

Via the Torugart Pass, we arrive fairly late into Kashgar, China. But that has never stopped me from a meal, particularly when just arriving into a new country. So we head out into the city to find an ATM and then a restaurant to give us our first taste of China. Where we end up is an Uighur place named Intizar. Monica sensibly has one of the house specialties, tohu gangpan, which is a mildly spicy chicken and potato dish with rice. I, deciding to be a bit braver, or just not as bright, go for one of the many dishes listed in the English menu simply as 'Happy, Special Meal' with an indecipherable picture. Didn't matter that the picture gave few clues, as even when the dish arrived I still wasn't sure what I had ordered. I think it may have been some sort of shellfish mixed with noodles in a vinegary sauce. Being as Kashgar is just about as far as you can geographically get from an ocean on earth, I was just slightly worried how my stomach would react. Whatever, it was good and by the morning had no signs of any stomach issues.

We spent a few more days in Kashgar and it turned out to be a great place for eating. There is still a large Uighur population, but in the last decade or so huge numbers of Han Chinese have emigrated out West bringing not only their culture, but turning Kashgar into a large, modern city. Some of what we had to eat:

-Fast food: Yea, not something I would normally talk about, but after fast food desert that was Central Asia, it was nice to go up to counter and order food by pointing at a picture and being fairly confident of the hygiene standards (something you spend allot of time pondering knowing you are about to get onto a truck for a long drive across the desert... ie no public rest stops and no trees for cover!). It wasn't McDonald's or KFC, but the Chinese versions called Best Foods and Dico's. Best Foods left something to be desired, their imitation Big Mac, just could not compare to the real thing. But Dico's was really quite good and we would see it all over China.

-Boil/fry your own food place: This was a cool place similar to a Korean barbecue, whereby you go up and pick your own skewers out of the refrigerated cabinets and then bring it back to your table and dip it into one of two boiling liquids. One is a spicy oil, the other is water based broth. The skewers can be anything from the simple (pieces of chicken breast or cubes of vegetables) to the more obscure (chicken feet and tongue). I suppose it was the sit-down version of the night market food we would start to see all throughout Asia.. One of the most interesting aspects though was the way they accounted the bill. You put all your used skewers into a cup and they are counted at the end of the meal. Obviously, more expenses items would have more skewers. So a whole fish may have 5 skewers, while a vegetable skewer may only have one. Either way, seeing the number of skewers we had, I thought we were in for a very expense meal, but still turn out to be less then $3 or so per person.

-Uigher food: As noted in an earlier blog, Kashgar has a similar cuisine to the rest of Central Asia but with some influence from China. So even though I have had my fill of laghman for an eternity, when in Rome...well, we ended up at a very surreal place next to the Id Kah Mosque. Being the only westerners in the place, guess they felt the need to put us in our own private room. Wasn't sure if this was for our benefit or their's, but nonetheless it was cool to feel like we had the king seats. The food was interesting, but nothing really new to report on it. Again ordering off of pictures we made a slight mistake on what we thought would be beans, actually ending up being peanuts (see, I think they put us in the room so they could laugh at us).

-Market food: This was my highlight of the Kashgar food scene. I had a hot pot where all the ingredients are displayed fresh in a bowl. You pick the bowl you want, then they cook it up in front of you, only asking how spicy you want it and if you want an egg added or not. But the real treat came while waiting for this concoction to be cooked. I was offered something I was later to learn was called a Dunhuang hamburger (later we would go to Dunhuang, but I could never find one there). This was simply a bun cooked on the spot, with bits of chopped pork, peppers and a spicy sauce. Really, I guess it is just the Chinese version of a pulled pork sandwich, but God it was good. I went back again that night and ordered 6 more to take back to the hotel for others. At first they kept arguing with me telling me that a sandwich was only 3 Yuan, not 6... Eventually, with the help of some people passing by, was able to get across that I actually wanted to order 6 of them!

Turpan

Nothing to say about food in Turpan as it is too hot to eat... 104 in the shade! Apparently they grow the best grapes in China in this town, but I can't understand how they don't immediately turn into raisins.