In Shuhe, the other ancient town near – and by now, basically in – Lijiang, I didn’t only end up in fields. As I already showed in the video, there was more food, as well.
To finish off this trip along the Tea-Horse Road, on the trail of the chilli, there was another nice selection of spicy-aromatic Naxi food.
First off, though, the food that Yunnan is famous for, Crossing the Bridge Noodles, Guo Qiao Mixian, was a necessity.
Crossing-The-Bridge Noodles
Unusually for China, this soup is not served all done and cooked, but with the scalding soup in the thick, hot bowl on one side, all the ingredients separately.
Many places, one is then left to know what should go in when. The restaurant my colleague/companion and I went to, they didn’t have any of that: The waitress brought the soup and ingredients and immediately proceeded to throw everything in.
(Should you ever be left to your own devices: The meats go in first, as well as the egg, as these are the ingredients you’d definitely want to have cooked. Mushrooms and vegetables come after. Noodles at the end.)
What is much more typical of China, and of such eateries, is the table with condiments, to add and aromatize the soup as one desires: chilli in its “fresh” duo lajiao guise, as chilli flakes or as chilli oil, pickled vegetables, cilantro, green leeks, and garlic.
Soy sauce and vinegar were missing from my list, I’ll say.
Best just put some of everything you want into your bowl, which you then fill with the ingredients from the soup bowl, spoon over some more of the soup – and enjoy.
Naxi-Food, Continued
After the different, rustic and a little more upscale, Naxi foods in Lijiang, after the detour to Tibetan food, we went for some more Naxi food here in Shuhe.
This “Granny’s Kitchen” presents itself rather upscale; it was well-visited – and good.
That was… tengjiao (Sichuan pepper) chicken… and should anyone wonder: Wuji, black chicken, which is held in higher esteem in China than ordinary yellow-skinned chicken. With a dipping sauce made of red chilli or a greenish one made of garlic. And all in a sea of cilantro and some green leeks.
Naxi-style fried fish, nicely (like) red-braised meat, with a good amount of red chilli.
Mushroom, fried with “hot pepper”, of which not much was noticeable.
As a contrast to all the spice, although hot enough and not without aromatic notes, we also had tieban (iron plate) tofu and Naxi-style fried rice. I can’t say much about that except that it had vegetables in it and was probably made with some soy sauce.
With this goodbye dinner, our time in Yunnan was up, and on we went to the second home, Chongqing…