With rustic ingredients, generous use of aged vinegar and an amazing variety of pasta / noodles, the cuisine of Shanxi Province may sound almost Italian. The parallels are remarkable -- Shanxi's Aged Vinegar is as highly revered in the world of Chinese cuisine as Reggio Emilia's is regarded in Italian, and the noodles of Shanxi is well-known for its multitudes of hand-rolled shapes. Welcome to the land of inexpensive, wholesome, farm-inspired cuisine.
Pingyao possesses such a goldmine of excellent local food that even most domestic tourists haven't heard of. But first you need to venture outside the City Wall, through the Lower West Gate (northwestern gate) in the direction of the Train Station. Forget inferior and overpriced restaurants targeting the Lao Wai inside the old city -- head outside where the Pingyao locals wisely spend their money.
Food Review: ZHONG DU BIN GUAN (Pingyao)
Address: 1 Shun Cheng Rpad, Pingyao
Hours: 11:00-22:00
Website/Map: Official Site
Directions: Zhongdu Binguan is the grey hotel in front of the Train Station, on the main road running north-south. It's on the right hand side of the road if you're coming out of the Train Station. Walk inside, ask the concierge and you'll be guided to the restaurant.
This was the most satisfying meal we've ever had anywhere in China in terms of Price to Quality Ratio. Not only was the quality of food excellent, but the whole ambience and amazing service were provided at such a cheap bargain bottom price. You simply won't find this quality at this price in any major city, let alone Beijing or Shanghai.
First I have to explain how I found this place -- I followed a discussion thread by local Pingyao foodies on Baidu.com's Tieba (in Chinese), and marked down three most recommended and accessible restaurants in Pingyao. Zhongdu was at the top of the list.
Zhongdu Binguan is actually a hotel, but its restaurant is regarded locally as one of the best. In fact when we first came for lunch, the entire restaurant was booked for a wedding banquet and we had to return for dinner another day. Good thing I wore a proper jacket for dinner, as we were seated in ...
A private room with only one table -- ours. With the chandelier above the table and classical music in the background, this could have been any top restaurant in Hong Kong. And the most astonishing thing was ... our server, a barely 20-year-old local girl, served only our table and stood outside of our door the whole night, waiting for my next call of "Fuwuyuan!"
This whole experience was so grand that my wife started to worry about the pricing, as service of this echelon would easily accompany a HKD$5000 (CAD$625) meal in Hong Kong, or at least a RMB 2000 (CAD$300) meal in Beijing.
The food was just as excellent as the service, as the first course immediately treated us to the legendary taste of Shanxi Aged Vinegar. Modestly named Liangban Sixiaowan (mixed salad in four little bowls), the flavor was anything but modest -- this was in fact one of the best cold dishes of our trip. The complex flavor of the smoke-fermented, probably 10-15 years old Aged Vinegar brought out the best of the simple and fresh ingredients. Yun'er (cloud ears mushrooms) and Enoki mushrooms may be commonplace everywhere in China, but that remarkable complexity of quality vinegar put an unmistakable Shanxi signature on the dish. And this wasn't even the best dish yet.
Our favorite item was an even simpler dish that every Chinese housewife can make, the ordinary Mogu Qingcai, or mushrooms and greens. Any half decent restaurant can do lobsters or scallops satisfactorily, but to elevate the flavor of a cheap (only RMB 16!) vegetable dish to the star of the meal requires real skills. The sauce seemed abalone- or dried scallop-based (Zhongdu is also locally famous for abalones and sea cucumbers, for clients more affluent than us) and also contained a dose of ... no surprise there ... Shanxi Aged Vinegar. And all that was absorbed into the soft Shiitake mushrooms. This was truly an excellent dish.
But Shanxi cuisine's main claim to fame is its noodles, and we had a hard time deciding between the assortment of shapes, many strangely and incomprehensibly named in the local dialect. We ended up selecting something we've never heard of, a pasta dish called Balanzi, which roughly meant "stirred broken." It turned out to be a potato-wheat flour pasta, irregularly shaped, and stir fried in oil with green onions and a hint of chili for flare. Excellent pasta at an unbelievable price of RMB 8 (CAD$1.2)! -- this was up-market taste and service at streetside noodle house pricing.
Our only meat dish, relatively priciest at only RMB 30 (CAD$4.5), turned out to be the only slip-up of the night according to my tastebuds. I would have preferred the sauce on the pork knuckle to be much thicker and seasoned with more vinegar to balance out the oiliness, but perhaps that's just me.
With one cold starter, one hot vegetable entree, one meat entree, one pasta and a large beer (Chrysanthemum Beer from Yanjing) for two persons, the grand total came to RMB 88 (CAD$13.3). Now you understand why this is such a great restaurant, in terms of Price to Quality Ratio. I highly recommend this place to anyone visiting Pingyao.
But the story gets more interesting. We decided to leave a few RMB of tips on the table, which is acceptable in higher class restaurants in Beijing and expected in Hong Kong. Only we were stopped by the greeters on the way out of the hotel, and was chased down by one of the servers to return the money to us. When I explained that this was Xiaofei (tips), the girls just chuckled. To this date this remains one of my favorite memories of Pingyao -- a well-executed, well-served dinner in a private hotel room that cost less than RMB 90, and we weren't even allowed to leave tips.
Bill for Two Persons
| Mixed Salad in Four Little Bowls | RMB 22 |
| Mushrooms and Greens | RMB 16 |
| Stir Fried Balanzi | RMB 8 |
| Zhongdu Pork Knuckle | RMB 30 |
| Large Chrysanthemum Beer | RMB 12 |
| TOTAL | RMB 88(CAD$13.3) |
Food Review: GUANG JU YUAN (Pingyao)
Address: Xiguan Dajie, Pingyao
Hours: 11:00-21:00?
Website/Map: None
Directions:From the Train Station, walk south on the main street for one block. Turn right at the traffic light. Guang Ju Yuan is a 2 minute walk down the street, on the right hand side.
Another restaurant highly recommended by Pingyao locals on Tieba, Guangjuyuan is one of the city's best noodle houses and a favorite lunch spot of students from Pingyao 2nd High School across the street. That doesn't mean it's only good for a quick and cheap bite though, as we arrived at 13:30, on a school day, to find the larger tables occupied by locals throwing a mini lunch banquet.
Guangjuyuan is all about pasta, as the words Mian Shi Guan (noodle house) on its full name implies. And this is exactly the purpose of our visit –- a taste of the best authentic noodles, at one of the city's best noodle houses, in China's premier noodle-producing region. All the noodles are hand-rolled of course, and most are unique to Shanxi Province and are found nowhere else in China. This is as good as it gets, if you're a fan of pasta dishes.
But first we had to follow the local tradition and start with a cold dish, in fact the most famous dish of Pingyao -- the renowned Pingyao Beef. This soft-textured, slightly salted meat is mass-produced in factories and really tastes the same everywhere, but the price here was cheaper (RMB 22) and the portion was much larger than inside the City Wall.
Moving onto hot dishes, this Zhima Qiezi, or eggplants in sesame, had chunks of soft, scaldingly hot eggplants enveloped in caramelized syrup and generously coated with browned sesame. No parent should have trouble coaxing their children into having more these veggies -- you could even call it a delectable dessert.
But the real focus of our visit was of course the amazing varieties of unique hand-rolled noodles. Through thousands of years, the locals of Shanxi Province have turned the curse of perennial droughts into a wide diversity of drought-tolerant, smaller-crop grains, and subsequently turned these grains into an extensive repertoire of pasta dishes.
The two of us only had stomach room for three pasta dishes. From your honest reporter, here they are:
The first was a cold appetizer named Wantu in the Pingyao dialect, which we jokingly called One-Two. Loosely translatable to "bald bowl," Wantu is made by pouring a semi-liquid wheat flour mixture into a bowl, steaming into a solid cake, then slicing into strips. Topped with a dressing of soy sauce, Aged Vinegar and chili pepper, the end product isn't quite as chewy as the next two pasta dishes, but was still an enjoyable appetizer.
The next pasta dish was simply weird to see and even more weird to pronounce. I have no idea what its name -- You Mian Kao Lao Lao -- means in the local dialect, though You Mian refers to the naked oat (or hulless oat) grain used as ingredient. These finger-rolled cannelloni-like pasta are stood up on their ends, steamed, and served with the two dipping sauces, vinegar or spicy tomato. The texture was incredibly chewy, and went very well especially with the vinegar.
The final pasta was another curiously named dish called Cuoyu'er, or kneaded fish. The shape was somewhat similar to the silver needle noodles (Yinzhenfen) of southern China, except it's made of a naked oat / wheat mixture which made it quite chewy. The pasta was accompanied by two sauces, minced meat and tomato, which we simply mixed together.
Which one was my favorite out of the three pasta dishes? Valuing chewiness in pasta dishes, I especially loved the You Mian Kao Lao Lao. But naked oat is more difficult to digest than wheat and may not suit everyone, so it's probably better for two or three people to share one steamer.
Bill for Two Persons
| Pingyao Beef Slices | RMB 22 |
| Eggplants in Sesame | RMB 18 |
| Cold Wantu in Dressing | RMB 6 |
| Steamed Hulless Oat Kaolaolao | RMB 14 |
| Rolled Fish Pasta | RMB 5 |
| TOTAL | RMB 65(CAD$9.8) |
Food Review: PING YAO QIN GE DA GUO ZAI (Pingyao)
Address: Beiguan Dajie, Pingyao
Hours: 11:00-21:00?
Website/Map: None
Directions:From the old city's North Gate, walk straight north on Beiguan street. It's a little red eatery on the right hand side, within a 2 minute walk down the street.
I didn't bring the SLR camera and don't have a clear photo of how this restaurant looks. But this place is famous -- just walk outside the City Wall's North Gate and ask the locals, and most people should be able to point you in its direction.
With a long and hard-to-pronounce name, Ping Yao Qin Ge Da Guo Zai is another eatery recommended by locals on Baidu.com's Tieba. Probably the first franchise chain originating from Pingyao, its trademark still features the city's name with pride. This is as authentically local as it gets.
Qin Ge Da, in the local dialect, seems to refer to these personal-sized hotpots. As outsiders (myself included) have no idea what it means, the franchise also added the common term of Guo Zai (small hotpot) to the name. There were about 10 or 15 different varieties, all reasonably priced at around RMB 16-25 per pot which includes all the meat, veggies and noodles you won't be able to finish in one sitting. The locals must all be burning 5000 calories a day, as this is even more filling than it already looks.
I ordered a Chuan Jia Fu (Everything In), which was decent but contained too many bone-in chunks of chicken for my preference. The Shi Jin Su Cai (Assorted Veggies) that my wife ordered turned out to be a excellent choice, and at a cheaper price as well (RMB 18). But whatever you pick, it's hard to go wrong with a locally flavored, personal hotpot for RMB 25 (CAD$3.8) or less. Remember this place if you're planning to take a long-distance bus, as it is located at just 5 minutes walk south of the bus station.
Bill for Two Persons
| Qin Ge Da (Everything In) | RMB 25 |
| Qin Ge Da (Assorted Veggies) | RMB 18 |
| Mushrooms and Greens | RMB 10 |
| Yanjing Draft Beer | RMB 12 |
| TOTAL | RMB 65(CAD$9.8) |
