Various foods from different areas

Usually people will go out and buy a list of dishes and jut pick from each of the dishes. Sometimes people will go to a 麻辣烫 (Malatang)  restaurant and pick from a set of vegetables or meat , then give the cook the vegetables and meat and tell him /her if you want it spicy or not. 20 minutes later he/she will bring out all the food in a bowl with the broth, too.

Combination of lotus root sausages noodles and various other bric a brac

small eggs , sausages , other meats and fish are in this concoction

 To be honest, it is nice to go to a village and eat out on the streets. Again, you can see all the food prepared in its raw form, you choose the food and the cook will barbeque he food up for you.

The cook always adds spices to the food when bbqing it.

Quite tasty with some local beverages

There is a Korean street in Yiwu so a few weeks ago , I headed down to one of the restaurants to try out Korean style bbq. It was a bit more expensive than the outdoor bbq but the met tasted a lot better. I guess they chose good meats.
So, usually what happens in this restaurant is the following, you orer the food and 5 minutes later the waitress will bring the food to the table and then you cook the food yourself, this is nice as you can apply as much spices as you want .

That thing hanging from the roof sucks up he heat coming from the open fire below

Sometimes, I will head to a local restaurant and partake in some local foods. At this rrestaurant the locals are always nice. They nearly always offer a cigarette before a meal (which is the custom around here)

From my memory, I think we ordered Kungpao chicken (宫保鸡丁) strips of potato (土豆丝)

green beans (四季豆) and braised pork (红烧肉)

A couple of years ago, I visited a place called Danba (Sichuan) which is a 6 hour bus drive from Chengdu. The people here (especially the ones living in the mountains) have lived here for many generations so the food is very traditional here.

                

I bunped into a family and they invited me to eat their food at the dinner table.

You can barely see the table with the food, here. 

The woman of the house makes some  milk mixed with nuts here.

 This year I travelled through Guizhou. At one point a guy gave me a lift from the countryside back to Kaili. In Kaili, we sampled a local restaurants food.

Kaili hot pot.

 I learned to never leave the bowl of rice on the table when eating it.

Although , dog seems to be sold everywhere around Guizhou, I decided not to give it a go.

Back in Yiwu, one can go to restaurants where one can eat both bbq and hot pot together.

Note the pigs blood . 

Actually quite tasty after it is heated up for 10 minutes

Of course it is always nice to eat at home. At one point a friend offered to cook some food. The egg tasted almost runny but had a solid texture to it.

Rice , purple cabbage , fluffy whisked eggs and nuts with green beans and spices

In Chengdu people like to eat  pickled veg. 泡菜 You can see this is the following picture.

Some kind of fluffy meat , pigs blood , 泡菜 and rice

The fluffy meat makes this meal nice.

The white balls  团员食品  are eaten by families usually returning for the spring festival

Sunflower seeds are free in most places

Those clear noodles hit the spot.

The potato hot pot with Kung pao chicken is quick and tasty,

Hot water is always a prerequisite with these meals.

Egg plant ,sliced potatoes and beef with green beans and other veg.

                                        
                               Although hot water is nice, it tastes better with a bit of flavour

The only cure for being too hot !