煎饼培根鸡蛋 (or Pancakes bacon and eggs!)

Dad was shown this fabulous little local eatery by a student of his and when we arrived, he was keen to share it with us. I was super impressed at Dad’s Chinese that he used to order not just his and Nicks pancakes, but mine too without the egg. My Daddy is well on his way to speaking Chinese!!!

Nick has been working hard on his video skills and he put together this cool little video of us getting pancakes. Click on the photo below to see the video!

I loved being able to choose a tonne of vegetables and I could pile my bowl up with potato, cabbage and carrots!!! The bowl you get given has a number and you have to remember that number cos when you hand your bowl in to be cooked as pancake filling, it’s that number that they call out to tell you yours is ready.

We got LOTS of looks, three large sized foreigners waiting for our pancakes with the locals. Nick was filming and I was poking my nose into what they were doing where ever I could. The pancakes were HUGE and we had so much trouble eating them cos they were so hot!!! Which made for a hilarious breakfast and more stares from the tables around us as well as the staff, who had by that point just decided that we were the morning’s entertainment. Which was fine by us, because we were too busy munching down clumsily on these huge as savoury pancakes that were totally delicious. A new favourite for sure!

Eating my way through Dalmatia/Croatia Part 2 – Pršut

I arrived in Dubrovnik during a storm in June 2016. Almost a year ago! The bus from the airport deposited Nick and I near the old town gates and it looked like the entire city had been washed clean overnight. The sun was out and all of the surfaces were soaking wet. I was tired (oh SO tired!), having flown in from Nanjing via Frankfurt and Zagreb. I missed China something awful and I was so overwhelmed at being back in Europe that I literally could not string together a complete sentence, which Nick found endlessly amusing. I couldn’t decide whether I was rapt to be back in Europe  (where the air was crisp and clean, the streets still smelled like fresh rain and even the Croatian accent felt familiar despite the fact that I had never been to Croatia before!) or whether I was still overcome with sadness at leaving behind China with it’s buzzing crowds, slippery subway stations, weird smells and wonderful people who stared at me a lot! So I really wasn’t much use. Nick deposited my large pack at my feet as I stood in the square called Brsalje and went in search of somewhere for us to get breakfast. It was still early, about 8am I think or maybe earlier, and we could see the various restaurants around us beginning to open up and set up their tables and chairs outside. The wait staff at a restaurant called Dubravka 1836 agreed to let us sit down out on the terrace while they finished setting up for breakfast. We didn’t mind waiting. From our table, I could see the wall to the old town. It was so… Impressive. I couldn’t do much more than stare at it, taking in all the details of the old stones it was made up of, of the moss growing in some of the cracks and the birds flitting up and down and round and round. I was overwhelmed! Even when one of the staff came over asking what we wanted, I just looked at Nick vacantly. Whatever he ordered for me, when it came out, I was VERY happy. The first thing to come out was the coffee. Oh the coffee… Even a year later, I can still feel how wonderful it was as I sipped on this piping hot molten GOLD. As much as I love Nanjing, good coffee is very hard to find. And the way Croatians like their coffee is very much how I like mine. Thick. Dark. Bitter. Sweet. And hot. No milk to taint it. Just pure, unadulterated caffeine heaven! Next the orange juice came out. Freshly squeezed, BRIGHT orange and chocka block with pulp. Then the waiter brought out the food. I think I smelled it before I saw it. Fresh croissant, Dalmatian pršut, some kind of hard cheese and bread. Simple. And effective! I dug in with my fingers and still, no words would come.

That first breakfast in Dubrovnik was my first taste of pršut. Of course I have had cured ham before. Prosciutto, various kinds of salamis, cured ham from back home… And I love the hardiness of pršut. It feels just that little bit thicker than prosciutto. More robust in flavour and not so delicate. It’s the kind of cured ham that you eat with your fingers, slice by slice! Or is that just me?! During our time in Croatia, pršut was a staple in my boat galley pantry. When I couldn’t get anything else, I learned which super market brands were the best, and when I was lucky enough to be able to buy it, I liked to treat the guests on the boat to locally bought pršut from a lovely vendor and his father who sold their cured meats and cheeses on the boulevard in Vis town.

Now many will tell me that pršut and prosciutto are pretty much the same thing. And yes, I know that they are definitely derived from similar traditions that brought us the wonderful Italian version of finely sliced cured ham. But just like prosciutto can vary depending on what region in Italy it comes from or which family recipe it is made with, the pršut that is made on the eastern side of the Adriatic has it’s own individual characteristics originating from variations in things like the wood that is used to smoke the ham, the salt that is used prior to washing the ham and even the air that the ham is hung in. All of these regional differences produce subtle flavour profiles that set pršut apart from being a mere copy of prosciutto.

Pršut can be used anywhere you would normally use prosciutto. It is great as a side to fresh vegetarian dishes like a warm vegetable frittata, laid out in a salad with salty capers, creamy cottage cheese and tomatoes or even as a breakfast food served along with cheeses, fruits, jams and croissants. At almost every restaurant in Dalmatia, you will find it on the menu as a very simple dish served with cheese and bread. I particularly love tearing up pieces of pršut to serve on a cheeseboard with local hard cheeses, fresh summer figs, bright red currants and some fresh crusty bread. The rich saltiness contrasts nicely against the sourness of the currants, the sharpness of the local hard cheeses and smooth sweetness of the figs. Can you tell that I love contrasts?! Almost as much as I love pršut!

 

Rude drivers who don’t get the job vs wonderful drivers who become friends

Of course as soon as we hit Nanjing, my darling mother is all about what work we can do and where we can go and lets DO IT ALL NOW!!! Luckily, we are totally down with her being a crazy lady so when Mum and Dad told us we all had to be at Nanjing Nan train station at 6am on Thursday morning, we just rolled with it. Unfortunately, the new Starbucks inside the train station terminal didn’t get the memo and wasn’t open when we arrived. They weren’t due to open until 7am but our train was scheduled to leave at 7am and we NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDED coffee! Luckily we had Nick to sweet talk the girl behind the counter and convince her to make us drinks early enough for us to race back to the gate just as it opened to let us down to our platform and we made it onto our train in plenty of time with coffees in tow. First mission of the day successful!

Mum had scheduled two workshops for Thursday and Friday in two different cities, Rui’an (瑞安) and Cixi(慈溪). Now when we travel with Mum and Dad for work, we usually stay at the local Intercontinental Hotel. We are all Club Members which means we get benefits, upgrades to Club Lounge and the food at Happy Hour is a great free substitute for dinner! Turns out there are no Intercontinental Hotels in either Rui’an or Cixi. Mum presented in Ningbo (宁波) a month or so ago and loved the service at the Ningbo Intercontinental. And since their rates were so reasonable and it wasn’t far from Rui’an and Cixi, we decided to stay in Ningbo. Which was great because it meant that after we had finished working, we had the weekend to explore Ningbo. I had done a little bit of research and I found that the XueDou Temple and the surrounding area (雪窦寺), just outside of Xidou (溪口), was an interesting place to explore. And after a pretty decent sleep in and buffet breakfast on Saurday, Dad asked the concierge to help him order a driver on his Didi app to take us to XueDou. Communicating on the app, the driver quoted a price (I think from memory it was about 150RMB), Dad accepted and the driver came to the hotel. Upon arrival at the Intercontinental, the driver all of a sudden wanted more money! Apparently, between Dad accepting the ride and the driver seeing us Westerners waiting for him, the price went up to over 300RMB! HA! I really felt for the young porter who was a timid looking Chinese guy whose English really wasn’t up to translating Mum’s arguing in English or the drivers very aggressive Chinese. And there was no way that we were paying the inflated price unless he gave us a good reason. Which he didn’t. So we told him to go away. It always amuses me how you don’t need translation to tell someone to go away. Body language definitely suffices for such kinds of communication!

 

So Dad heads back into the hotel to organise another driver with the concierge. Cue more waiting and then another car turns up. He had a nice smile, Dad said the concierge checked with him that the price would not change and he checked with us before using the highway (which incurred a toll charge). During the drive, he tried to interact with us a little. He drove us through the gates to the attraction after a discussion with the guards that we think was about private cars not being allowed through. He pointed to us a lot during that conversation which we interpreted to mean that he was explaining to the guard that he was hired by these crazy Westerners so he should be let through. Whatever he said, it worked and we were allowed through the gate! Seems he had never been to XueDou Temple either, cos he made ‘wow’ noises along with the rest of us as the huge (HUGE) Buddha Maitreya statue came into view. Instead of just dropping us off and driving away, he arranged with Nick and Dad to wait for us and drive us back after for 250RMB total. Which was such a great price! And once we had paid for our entrance tickets and were inside the complex, we laughed as we kept bumping into him! Through WeChat messages and gestures, he got us to take selfies with him, which he promptly posted on WeChat Moments.

Unfortunately, Mum badly sprained her ankle before we arrived and even though she was stubborn enough to walk up all those stairs, her ankle got really painful and tired once she finally made her way down. We were all tired as well anyway, so we didn’t get the chance to explore Xuedou mountains other offerings, which sound absolutely amazing.

Driving back to Ningbo, he was much more animated. Using our rudimentary Chinese skills, we learned that his name is 井振华 (Jing Zhenhua to us!). He laughed when he couldn’t understand what the hell we were talking about and was very careful to only use WeChat messaging to communicate with us when he was stopped at a red light. Which made a change from one of our old drivers in Nanjing, who would scare the crap out of my by paying more attention to Wechat than he did driving! Back at the hotel, Nick gave Zhenhua 300RMB and it was actually a big deal to take it. Normally Chinese drivers don’t like to take a penny more than the fare agreed upon. It’s a pride and a respect thing. And Nick was very careful to demonstrate to him in a respectful way that we really appreciated how helpful he was and that we enjoyed his company. He handed the extra money to him with both hands and Zhenhua graciously accepted. I think it also helped that we then invited him to be our guest in the Club Lounge. It was Happy Hour so we were able to share with him the benefits of free drinks and free food that was laid out in a small buffet. We kept talking to him, with the help of WeChat (thanks goodness for WeChat’s awesome translation functions!) and we learned more about him. Originally from Hunan, he lived in Ningbo with his wife and two kids. He asked us how we knew each other, where we lived and how long we would be in China. Dad got to practice his Chinese and told him that I was his daughter. It took a few goes but he eventually understood! He ate a certain Chinese fruit (in English it’s called the longan berry and in Chinese it’s called龙眼 or long yan) and showed me how to peel it, and spit the pip out. He offered to take us anywhere we wanted later that night for no charge, “We are now friends.” When I expressed interest in street food, he said that there was lots of colourful and local street food near Tianyi (天一) Square. So that’s where we went. He seemed quite content to play tour guide for us, he laughed at how much I loved chestnuts (板栗 or ban li) and helped us to buy a bag for me to munch on. I had fun getting lost in the maze of little shops in an open-air mall kind of place, as Nick and Zhenhua both tried to avoid the stench of the smelly tofu that wafted in the air! We were right underneath the Tianfeng Pagoda (originally built in the Tang Dynasty) and even though it was not open, it cast an impressive shadow across the night sky. Nick was particularly stoked that Zhenhua understood his rusty Chinese when he asked about a particular kind of boiled dumpling that he loves (水饺 or shuijiao, which is literally water dumpling). Zhenhua even found us a little place to buy shuijiao from. And they were yummy too!

It really made our time in Ningbo to have met Zhenhua. How glad are we that the first driver was so rude because otherwise we would not have had the chance to meet the lovely guy who drove us around and laughed at our terrible Chinese!

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