Newest addition to the McDonald’s China dessert menu - peach pies! and they are delicious!!!

So the other night, we had a going away dinner for a friend at Hatsune, in the Village at Sanlitun.  The most memorable thing from the restaurant was the fact that in front of the guests, they place a tray full of chopsticks that are all different, and you get to choose which you want to use! I thought it was nice touch to dinner.  The food was good - not the greatest, but the company was good and it was a nice evening.

Finally got some dim sum here in Beijing! It’s been a while, and while it wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, it wasn’t bad, and it was cheap! (under 10 dollars for something like 9 different things)

After reading this article (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1284646/Meet-Tiger-Dog-Chinese-owners-dye-pets-look-like-wild-animals.html), I have noticed that I had yet to see one of these dye’d pets here in Beijing.  Well, low and behold, I finally ran into a panda dog! As ridiculous as it may seem, the dog was quite happy, and a lot of people came to say hi to it and pet him.  Don’t think I would ever subject a pet to this, but some people really want their animals to get more attention I suppose!

Crunchy.  Salty.  tastes like…part of a softshell crab, or better yet, some small fried shrimp.  Yup, that’s how I would explain the taste of some fried scorpions.  While I haven’t graduated on the larger versions that they offer, I did eat the 4 scorpions on this stick and I gotta say, they weren’t bad.  I’d eat them again.  I washed it down with a snake meat chuan’r.  I also was able to try part of a fried gecko (or something similar) and a piece of seahorse.  All of it is just…fried.  Maybe I’ll get up the courage to try one of the large scorpions someday…

So in my time here, I’ve ordered McDonald’s numerous times, and have always ordered things that we don’t have on the menu in the US.  This last time however, I was craving some nuggets so I ordered mcnuggets.  They were…exactly the same, but that’s how McDonald’s and countless other franchises work.  Have the same trademarked products.  What was different however, were the sauces.  They didn’t ask what sauce I wanted, but just included them.  A sweet and sour, and a chili-garlic.  The chili-garlic was EXTREMELY garlic-y and was a bit too much for me.  The sweet and sour just didn’t taste the same…I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was definitely different from the one in the US.  Regardless, I enjoyed my nuggets anyways, and will continue finding subtle differences in things.

Beef is a rare item in the grocery stores here.  While there is beef, it is expensive and much less of it than chicken and pork.  As such, I chose not to buy any and just bought some chicken!  Here is my meal that I made out of chicken wings - forgot how much work it was to cook for just myself.  Seeing as how the price of food here on average is around 30 RMB per meal, I think in the future I’ll just go out to grab some food.  But it is half the cost of the fast-food delivery I normally get and perhaps I’ll invite some friends over for dinner one night.

As a second meal, I again used some pork and prepared it the same way so I won’t include that.  Rather than eating kimchi however, I bought some cucumbers and made a cucumber salad.  There are so many Sichuan restaurants here in Beijing, and it is very common to see people ordering a Sichuan cucumber salad.  I took the recipe for one since I always enjoy ordering this dish in the restaurant and made it for myself here at home.  The only thing I was missing were the Sichuan peppercorns - while I do not mind the numbing sensation they offer, I wanted to see if I could get enough flavor out of some chili garlic paste, so used a bit more of that in substitution.  The result was pretty good - although the cucumbers that weren’t soaking in the dressing longer tended to have less flavor, the ones that got to sit a bit tasted just like the restaurant.  I think next time I’ll add a little of the Sichuan pepper just to add that authenticity, but for the first try I think it turned out great.

So, after I made that previous ramen-chow-mein meal, I decided to go to the market to get a few things, and ended up getting around 150 RMB worth of groceries.  In actuality, around 50RMB was for things like frozen dumplings, bread, and some soup mixes, but for the rest of the 100RMB spent, I got some pork, chicken, and vegetables.  I even picked up some pre-made kimchi.  As a result, I have stayed home to stay out of the heat, and avoided ordering take away from the local fast food joints.  Here is the first meal made - consisting of pork, some kimchi, and a scallion salad.  I was missing red pepper flakes so the scallion salad doesn’t look great, but it tasted pretty good.