烧茄子盖饭 Roast aubergine on rice (7 RMB). Looks boring, tastes delicious. There's some kind of Worcester sauce/fish sauce/tangy sauce thing in it.

肉夹馍 Chinese doner kebab (3.5 RMB). Better quality meat than your English doner. The meat was hanging loose and crispy on the elephant leg.

Crisps that taste faintly of toffee. (3 RMB) I don't know what these are really. I expected them to taste like health food beetroot and carrot crisps but they were almost tasteless with a sweet aftertaste.

>>2380
Dog flavoured with budgie tears

>>2378
That looks fantastic.

Heart attacks in plastic packaging.

>>2410
Welcome to good food lad.

Good food is healthy food.

Continuing the most pedestrian "exotic foods odyssey" ever..

章鱼小丸子 Octopus Balls. (3 RMB) Fried batter with a tiny bit of meat inside, covered in mayonnaise, chili sauce and dried squid. I think it's just a cheap imitation of Japanese Takoyaki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takoyaki

猪肉韭菜水饺 Boiled dumplings filled with leek and pork （8 RMB）They're quite thick and rough and ready compared Cantonese style steamed dumplings. Lots of vinegar in the soup. I opted out of the chilli sauce on this one because it tends to overpower everything else.

>>2438

That looks like a game of Soggy Biscuit gone wrong.

Why are you in Beijing, OP? Are you one of those squinty-eyed anti-democrats?

>>2438
I've never really liked dim sum/chinese dumplings, though I'm often told they're fantastic once you get into them. I guess you have to go to a good restaurant at the right time of day, etc.

I detest vinegary soup. I tried some Eastern European soups that were all vinegary and it was foul.

I'm just replying to get this image off the front page... it makes me feel sick>>2438

>>2482
haha, oo you sensitive soul

>>2452

Dim sum I don't like but gyoza are chinese dumplings and delicious. Dim sum is usually just steamed so has a sort of clammy feel but gyoza are fried so the taste and texture is rather different to dim sum.

My older brother told me a story when I was a gullible child about how Dim Sum was invented, involving a Chinese father preparing dinner and asking his very dim son to help, who promptly mixed up all the food.

>>2452

Dim sum is incredibly easy and cheap stuff to make, if any place is doing it poorly then they probably just don't know what they're doing. Could be a mix of trying to make the things too large, to make it seem more cost effective a purchase, and just general ignorance of basic Chinese flavors (sweet, sour, bitter, spicy, and salty).

I think a general rule of thumb for assessing the quality of any food food establishment (restaurant, fast food place, street vendor) is to just look at how busy the place is. The longer the lines the better the food must be for people to put up with the wait.

Also noodles are always popular as a simple thing to eating, due to how easily they soak up flavor. They often are cooked in stock, which apparently is a foreign concept to some westerners, and then stir fried in various sauces and oil and possibly topped with minced meat.

Pic related; a simple dry chicken mee.

Though back to the actual dim sum; it's simple and cheap and you have to be a complete fool to not make something that tastes nice.

How was that Chinese doner kebab? The only place I've had a good doner outside of the UK is in Berlin, which is surely doner capital of the world.

>>2586 that is the ugliest food i have ever seen

>>2586

Looks like a bowl of rotten worms in dirty oil or diarrhoea.

>>2588

It's basically just noodles that have a thickened sauce involving soy sauce. It may look terrible, but it really is fucking tasty.

Asian restaurants can have some really nice food, it's just you have to deal with the hurdle of people who are accustomed to their traditional western cuisine.

It's probably why many people just get some of the bland "stir fries", seaweed salads, or egg rolls when they think about trying Chinese food.

>>2586>>2584
Just to be annoyingly picky, "dimsum" is not a synonym for "Chinese dumplings", it is the name of a Cantonese meal involving tea and lots of small dishes - often including steamed dumplings.
"Gyoza" is not the name for fried dumplings, it is the Japanese pronunciation of the generic word for dumplings/Chinese ravioli things/whatever you want to call them ( 餃子). In Mandarin those characters are pronounced jiǎozi and in Cantonese they are pronounced gauzi.
In Beijing steamed, boiled and fried jiaozi are all avaliable, although boiling seems to be the default cooking method. In Hong Kong I think jiaozi are mostly steamed and they're a bit more haute-cuisiney, delicate and prawny.

>>2594

This is why people should stick to the English names for things. Less mistakes and arguments.

>>2594
<_<
>_>
weeabo.

>>2594
Thank fuck someone can do things properly.
You wouldn't stand for someone larking around calling a specific dish of meatballs the name 'lunch' would you?

>>2636

Yes I would. Especially if he was having it for lunch.

>>2640
You obviously misunderstand, not for (themeal) lunch but he'd like a serving of lunch. He's having (the dish) lunch again today. He's tired of eating (thedish) lunch.
No sir you would not.

>>2662

Yes I would. Especially if you were within earshot.

>>2662
"dimsum" is a little more specific than "lunch" though. It's more like "Cream tea" in that "dimsum" refers to a roughly predictable range of dishes rather than just a time of day. So calling gauzi/jiaozi "dimsum" is a bit like always calling scones "Cream tea" (ie. half the time what you are saying still makes sense even if you are referring to something slightly different than you think you are).

>>2598
regardless of that posters' abnormally comprehensive knowledge of several varieties of exotic culture grouped in a particular area, he is distributing information about food wrapped in dough.
food wrapped in dough is always fantastic, be it dumplings, samosas pierogies, ravioli, tamales or pasties.
things wrapped in dough may well be the most important topic on planet earth

>>2849
I ate dog meat wrapped in dough once, well i say ate, once the my pallet began to comprehend the texture and taste my gag reflex kicked in.

>>2886

Yes, Greggs really have gone downhill these days.

>>2887

sayers 4 life