Food-an' University

I decided that my epicurean adventures to date deserved a posting all of their own.

 

I have a favourite place to eat - and surprisingly it's the University canteen! It's a massive dining hall - with around 20 different stands serving different types of food. My favourite stand is a "create your own" noodle soup place - a nice lady fills an individual pan with your choice of veggies, noodles, 7 types of tofu, seaweed etc and then cooks is for you. You then get your bowl of soup back and can flavour is with your own choice of seasonings. I love it - the perfect place to practise the words for different vegetables - and I can make sure I get enough protein (every vegetarian's dream). I also get very excited that I can have half a dozen quail eggs in there - because they aren't seen as anything special here. This veggie-noodle-dream dinner costs around 60p - so falls well within my budget.

 

Jiaozi (small ravioli-like dumplings) are really popular - and they are delicious - though finding veggie ones can be difficult. I ate a lot of street food when I was staying at the hostel - lots of tofu on sticks and savoury pancakes filled with chillies and spring onions. It seems the way to make money here is to serve a food stuff on a stick - snacking is a national passtime and if you can snack and walk at the same time, then that's even better.

 

There seems to be a snobbery about Western things - Pizza Hut is a fairly high class establishment here, and a cup of coffee at a Haagen Daaz cafe costs around the same as it would in Britain - except people don't earn British wages. I'm considering opening my own street vending operation selling "genuine Western food" - something like a jacket spud van, or mushy peas and cockles like at the seaside....perhaps I should stick with the studying for now....