Spent the Weekend in China… Well… Sort of…
16 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in The Aftermath Tags: asian market, hot pot
This weekend, even though the snow tried to stop it, I got to enjoy a little taste of China.
One of my sweet friends who had lived in Chengdu at some point recommended that we have hot pot, so that’s exactly what we did on Friday.
We met up at our local Asian market, which I was very excited about. I hadn’t been to this one before but I had heard great things about it. I now know why. The Asian market had so many selections and a lot of the food was from China! I was beyond excited. We started with the produce, grabbing mushrooms, bak choy, and my favorite, lotus root. We also found some tofu, hot pot mix, quail eggs, and something I have seriously missed, peanut milk. It ended up being a little different than the peanut milk I remember. This one had literal peanuts in it as well, but it ended up being amazing! It simply gave it more flavor.
After buying food, we headed to my friend’s place to prepare the food and wait on another friend to join us. Once the other beautiful lady had arrive, we started preparing our amazing feast. As we chopped up food and got everything ready for a more traditional style of hot pot, we talked about our stories and how we ended up in Chengdu at some point in our lives. It was so funny to listen to their stories and compare. It seems like for all three of us struggled a little bit with the idea of originally going, but once we got there, we grew to love it.
Finally, the moment we had all been waiting for had arrived. The food was chopped up and ready to cook, and the soup was boiling; we were ready to eat!
It was so much fun! What I love about hot pot, is the fact that it one of those meals that once all the preparations are done with, it’s beyond enjoyable. You throw the cut up foods into the boiling soup in the middle and wait for it to cook, which a lot of times only takes about a minute. But as we do this, we are able to talk and actual enjoy the company of each other. I can definitely understand how it became such a big cultural element in Chengdu.
After eating, laughing, and finding the ever disappearing meat that kept hiding from us, we decided to watch a movie. It was actually a movie I had wanted to see while I was in Chengdu, but I never got around to it. It’s called “A Beautiful Life” (不再让你孤单), a beautifully directed Chinese movie about a couple who go through many trials to be together. I loved it! There were definitely moments that made me tear up a little bit, but for the most part, I kept it together. It also helped that my friends provided some comic relief on occasion. ^.^
Overall, it was a wonderful night full of laughter, reminiscing, and lajiao (辣椒).
The next day, Saturday, I met up with my best friend, Danielle, to drop off her car that she had let me borrow for the week. Danielle was starving and asked me if there was anywhere I would like to eat, but I honestly didn’t care where we ate, as long as it was edible. Danielle then decided she was in the mood for Chinese, which I was not opposed to at all. So we went to a local place called Chen Garden and had some AMAZING Chinese food. We ordered dumplings, tofu, and my all time favorite, eggplant (鱼香茄子)! It was seriously so delicious!!!!!
I truly had a great weekend! It was almost like I visited Chengdu for a brief moment.
