Today was our last day in Beijing. It was quite low key. We were going to go to the Temple of Heaven, on the account that it was heavily recommended by Drew’s adviser. But on second thought, we realized that the chances that we’ll be here are extremely high (Drew’s research interest is China and so he’ll be back to do a language program and fieldwork, and I will probably at least visit). And really, how many temples can one see in a month?
I ate my last egg sandwich, which made me a little sad. I’ll miss those, and I’ll miss the street food. For lunch, Drew and I went to eat dumplings, and it was certainly an experience. Recently, I told Drew that if we weren’t vegetarians, it would be fun to enter a restaurant, point to anything on the menu, and wait and see what we get. Well, we kind of did that today, and it backfired.
Drew was able to communicate that we didn’t eat meat. Apparently, animal organs are an entirely different category, but I’ll get to that in a second. Our server pointed out the section containing dumplings with no meat. Drew ordered the egg and mushroom dumplings (my favorite!) and then we randomly picked two other kinds and ordered those. He chose one, and I chose the other. I picked one solely because the last character in the name looked like a firework. I thought it looked neat. Drew ordered a dish with eggplant, lots of garlic, and cilantro. Then the server kept recommending another dish to us, and so I thought, “sure, why not. I’ll give that a whirl.”
We got our eggplant, and then we got a mystery dish. Immediately, Drew said it looked like liver. Seeing as how he told our server that we don’t eat meat, I really wanted it to be something else. Maybe it was an unattractive mushroom. It’s a good thing we didn’t place bets because Drew would have won. I’m not sure that I ever voluntarily ate liver when I did eat meat, but for some reason, after eating a tiny bit, I knew that this mystery dish was indeed liver. Oh well. When you simply point and order, you have to be prepared for stuff like this. Why our server was hell bent on getting us to order this dish is beyond us. Even if liver falls into the non-meat category, I’m not sure why that would be the dish to recommend to people who say they don’t eat meat. Why not recommend the cucumbers? Or the stir fried potatoes? Oh well. We weren’t upset. There’s only so much you can do when you don’t speak Chinese.
Next we got the egg and mushroom dumplings, which are savory and delicious. Mystery Dumpling #1 had egg and water chestnuts, and then Mystery Dumpling #2 had egg and dried shrimp. This was a bummer, but again, we weren’t upset. Even though we ate only half our meal, I still had fun walking in, pointing to something on the menu, and then waiting to see what we get. After lunch, Drew said that if he didn’t eat any Chinese food for the next six months, he’d be okay with that. While he was busy swearing off Chinese food, I was thinking that we should learn to make dumplings when we got home.
For our last meal in Beijing, we thought it was highly appropriate to eat…Italian food. We didn’t plan on this. We were headed to the Noodle Loft because I wanted to see chefs make hand pulled noodles. Well, of course guidebooks always recommend the restaurants that are nearly impossible to find. Drew and I wandered around for an hour and a half and never found it. Sigh. He said that it just wouldn’t be dinner if he didn’t walk a mile or two to get it.
So we stumbled upon Annie’s, an Italian restaurant that I remembered seeing in the guidebook. Annie’s definitely was not a consolation prize. The food was among the best I’d ever eaten. We ate an eggplant melanase- eggplant, ricotta, and walnuts layered together and drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Next we ate a mushroom risotto and a spinach ravioli. Our server ground fresh black pepper over our food and I couldn’t believe that it had been nearly a month since I’d eaten anything with black pepper. For dessert, we shared the tiramisu, which went down very nicely.
I don’t feel bad about eating Italian food for our last supper. We have eaten Chinese food at least once every day for the past month. I’m not sure that I’ve ever eaten food from one cuisine at least once every single day, so why start now?
Chris with a 'K' 