What inspired me to finally start working on this post is BING ZI (饼子) or...flatbread? slightly fried rolled out bread? delicious bread? Think green onion pancakes and just about any variation thereof--with meat inside, with no green onions, with sesame seeds, literally any delicious version you can think of for a flat slightly (or extremely) oily pancake-esque thing of dough that you can find just about anywhere you turn your head.
The best part of this is not just how tasty it is (which was what I was anticipating when I arrived), but also the fact that they use this bread to make wraps, burritoes, etc. They use this bread to do their version of hotdogs. Literally all over the place, there are little carts manned by people selling this delicious concoction. Ok, I don't trust the hot dog part of it, but if you get the works, they'll fry up a 'bing zi', put a fried egg, piece of lettuce, a hot dog, and some ketchup-ish stuff and wrap it all up for 5 YUAN. So less than a dollar, essentially. Or if you're like me, I just get the fried egg and 'bing zi' and YUM. Here's a photo (finally!) showing an example of a dude making one sandwich for someone (I snuck a photo because I feel incredibly weird taking photos of what everyone here thinks of as utterly mundane).
Notice the hot dog, lettuce, and fried egg? There were about five other such carts right next to this one!
At the supermarket, I get another version about every other morning for breakfast from a person who's making them fresh. She makes versions that are much less greasy (thank goodness) stuffed with red bean, plain ones, stuffed with a pork and mushroom mix (all 1 yuan each), and finally this hash brown patty held together by a fried egg on top (2 yuan). The latter I needed to make myself stop getting because a fried egg and potatoes was delicious but probably a heart attack waiting to happen if I kept eating them. But yummm, the plain ones are so delicious and bread-y and like what I can make but better.
Another bingzi variety is a burrito or crepe, essentially. I had one for lunch today, as there's a place to make them at the north gate at my campus. On a total aside, the north gate has an area filled with little places for students to eat at or get a quick meal. My lab mates regularly get food from here, and it's been an experience trying the different foods and trying to order. Everything goes really fast and there's very few photos and so many options that I'm often overwhelmed.
The 'cafeteria style' section by the North gate. There's about 20-30 little stalls here where you can order anything from baozi (steamed buns) to a rice dish to hand pulled fresh noodles for super cheap prices (most expensive thing I've gotten so far was 9 yuan).
Anyways, back to Chinese burritoes. Outside of the North gate area, there's a little stall you can walk up to and ask for...well, my lab has ordered it for me every time, but if I said something like (饼子卷白菜不要啦 or bingzijuanbaicai buyaola or 'wrap with napa cabbage, not spicy'), I think they'd understand what I want. Essentially, it's a really flat bread thing (but still a good chewy texture), where they put a egg on to fry into the bread, and then put napa cabbage, potato slivers, and this glass noodle mix, which they cover up and let cook on their stove thing until the cabbage on the inside is basically steamed all the way through and soft and delicious. The grocery store near my place also does a version of this (though cold), where I pick what I want, so I get it with tofu skin strips, potatoes, a noodle-y thing, and green onions. 6 yuan, max.
A terrible photo that does not do justice to the napa cabbage burrito that I scarfed down for lunch today.
So, basically, I'm in love with bingzi and don't know what I'm going to do when I can't immediately go get it somewhere five minutes after I start craving it.
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