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083 Favorite China Foods Part 4 · bit of a Rambler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I'm a bit of
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and today I want to talk about snacks. I think
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I did finish my Favorite Foods in China episodes with
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: all the main foods in one, two, and three, but
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I do have a few snacks that I didn't mention
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: right off that, like right now, I would say are
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: also my favorite foods, Like I'm addicted to a couple
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: of these, so this will be a shorter episode, but
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: these are honorable mentions of favorite foods in China that
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I should talk about that are more like snacks rather
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: than entrees mostly, And my mouth is actually watering the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: thought of this first one. Innoki mushrooms in chili oil.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Those are also known as pin mushrooms or jinjungu in Chinese.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: But yeah, they're like those long, white, thin mushrooms in clumps. Now,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I do like those mushrooms, And in China they love
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: to tell you they're called see you tomorrow mushrooms ming
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: tianjiengu because they're difficult to digest, so you might see
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: them tomorrow in the restroom. Now, a noke mushrooms are
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: great anyway, and I like them at Shaokao and all
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: this other kind of stuff just in hot pot or whatever.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: But I found this snack and it's a little pouch
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: of anoke mushrooms soaking in chili oil. And I'm sure
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I've talked about it. I love chili oil. I love
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: spiced chili oil, and mushrooms are healthy and tasty, and
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: it's a real crunchy texture, the anoke mushrooms. So one
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: of my life delights are to open one of these
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: packets and just crunch down on these crispy anoke mushrooms
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: marinated in spiced chili oil. It's so delicious and satisfying. Obviously,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: with all of these things I'm gonna mention are great
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: with drinks, and I ate most of them with drinks,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: but the Anochi mushrooms in chili oil, I could eat
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know twenty of those packets without breaking a sweat,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: no problem. I bought these all the time. After I
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: found out they were a thing. They became my go
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: to snack, and they're a more recent one. I didn't
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: know about them for the first probably five years or
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: something I was in China. I just never got them
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: because they just didn't know about them. There are so
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: many tiny snacks in Asian markets and there's so much
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: great food that I was just unaware of some of
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: these snacks, like anocchi mushrooms in chili oil. I highly
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: recommend looking them up at your local Asian market. I
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: did find them in Asian markets before, because they are
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: a pretty popular snack, but they're not ubiquitous. But if
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: you have an Asian market in your city, to go to,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: man Andoke mushrooms and chili oil are the best. They're
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: all in these little foil packets, and the chili oil
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: is like there's other normal Chinese spices mixed in, like
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: anistar and cinnamon, and just very lightly so it gives
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the chili oil an even richer flavor. Oh my gosh, seriously,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: my mouth's watering talking about it. It's crazy, Okay, normal
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: fried salted peanuts. I got these a lot. There was
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: a place near one of my schools, and I lived
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: in an adjoining apartment to that school, and after work
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: was out, I would go down to this one place.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: It was on the corner of an intersection and it
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: was inside a building and you couldn't go inside, but
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: there was a plate glass window that kind of wrapped
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: around the corner of the building, and there were ten
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: people back there preparing all the various foods and everything
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: in there. Great. But I tried the fried salted peanuts
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: once and I was like, what, how are these also
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: better than normal fried salted peanuts. They did also have
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: laggio like midst red chilies mixed in, which was another
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: important factor. So I started getting bags of those, like
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: kilograms of those liang jin I would get every time,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: and then I just have this huge bag, you know,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: tens thousand calories or whatever it is, but I would
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: devour it because it just tasted. It's just delicious, and
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: it's a good snack when friends come over, Like I said,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: you're just drinking beer or whatever. But I would usually
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: get the fried salted peanuts when I got the next
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: item on this list, cured heart. So heart is my
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: favorite cut of meat. It's a little denser than most
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: other meats. You know, it does work constantly, So juicing
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: pig heart or yushene beef heart. I think these guys
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: usually had beef heart, but it would just be a
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: hunk cured dry, cured heart, and you could get a
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: pound of it or two pounds if you were me
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: and I got that every birthday or like holiday, that
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: would be like my special treat because it was kind
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: of expensive, kind of it was like five dollars a pound.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: But it's such a rich, salty, flavorful meat with the
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: perfect texture. And often on my birthday. One of my
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: fondest memories of a birthday in China was getting a
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: heart and a bag of salted peanuts. And there was
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: a liquor store that had whiskey, which is very rare
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: in China. Imported whiskey, and they had a fourteen year
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: old glen Fiddick for on sale during my birthday, and
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I got that, so I had this great fourteen year
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: old whiskey. I really like Glenfiddick. Fourteen sounds wrong, I'd
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: have been twelve year I think that was correct. I
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: usually got the twelve year and one time I got
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the fifteen and then a beef heart and the salted peanuts.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: And I had a friend over and we just cut
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: slices off and talked about the school and joked and
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: shared stories. But it's such a satisfying snack, this cured meat.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I love beef jerky too, but this isn't exactly jerkied.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: It's just dry aged cured meat. So it's super salty
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: and super rich and delicious and easy to eat. And
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: you just cut slices off and eat it up. And man,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: that was like my special food. Like Thanksgiving turkey, I
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: would much rather have a Thanksgiving cured heart. The texture
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: and flavors just so rich and delicious. So cured beef heart.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Favorite snacks, crunchy garlic peas exactly what they sound like.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I feel like those would become more popular in the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: US lately. There's a whole bunch of different flavors. I
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: like the garlic one's the best. So they just fry
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: up green peas until they're crispy crunchy, and then sprinkle
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: garlic powder on them. Done. That's it, Bob's your uncle.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Crunching garlic peas are delicious. You can crunch them and
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: eat them with beer. I each of those snacks, like
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: I said, the one that probably had the most staying
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: power were the cured beef heart. I mention because I
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: would buy that on special occasions, on holidays or my birthday.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I liked to keep that as a real special food,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: so I might like that one the best. Oh but
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the NOOKI mushrooms difficult. But all those other snacks. When
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I first found out about them, I bought them constantly,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Like every day I would go buy and buy another
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: twenty pouch of crunchy garlic peas or fried salted Oh
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: my gosh. You know what The number one frickin' beer
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: snack I went crazy on on was pickled string beans.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: And that's all they are. They cut up string beans
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: into like tiny eighth of an inch slices and then
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: pickle them and put them in a metal pouch that
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: you buy for twenty five cents or whatever. Mouths watering again.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I love little salty snacks when I'm drinking beer. And
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: four years I would buy one of these packs of
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: pickled string beans. If I didn't want to go get
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: any food, I could always stop by the supermarket, get
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: this easy little pouch of pickled string beans, and you know,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: a modest twenty beers or so. And you know, if
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: I wasn't doing anything the next day, that was my night,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: which is you know, I have very clear memories of
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: playing the Witcher three, munching on the string beans, popping
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: open a beer, drinking it string beans, playing the video
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: game and just having a great time and my stand
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: desk with my snacks and beer and video games. It
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: was really fun. So any of these snacks, like they
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: sound simple, you know, fried peanuts or crunchy garlic pees
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: or whatever, but they really were like my favorite food
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: at the time. I would teach just looking forward to
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the end of the day where I would not because
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I hated teaching or I was tired of the class.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: I loved my students, and I had a good time teaching,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: and the teaching hours are so by that point when
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I was getting the pickled string beans all the time,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: that was after I started my own school, so I
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: was only working twelve hours a week or something like that.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: So every time I had work, I was just like, Hey,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I get to hang out with these like cool, smart
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: students again, and their parents all think I'm education incarnate
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: and it's just a completely positive experience where I'm making
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: a very decent profit. And then while I was teaching,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: I was just like, oh, and I'm gonna eat my
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: snacks soon, just like really excited to eat my snacks.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Oh man, in that school right downstairs had hueg aro,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: which I must have mentioned in an earlier Favorite China
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Foods episode. I think I worked three days a week
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: at that second school, maybe four days a week, but
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: every day I worked, almost every day, I would just
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: walk downstairs and get that houy gourot first, have some
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: of the plumb wine in that restaurant, and then after that,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I would go get one of these snacks, the yenoki mustions,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: chili oil or the pickled string beans or something, get
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: my beer maybe yact jerky from the guy who was
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: selling it in the evening, and then head home and
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: im vibe and have snacks and watch movies or play
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: video games or hang out with friends. It was great.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: But that's how much I love all of these snacks.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: They were my favorite foods. I would yeah, I would
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: just think about them, like, man, I can't believe I
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: get to eat that again. Like just one time I
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: ate Anoki mushrooms in chili oil. If I only got
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: to eat that one time, like had a dish of
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: anoki mushrooms and chili oil, I would remember that dish.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I'd be like, oh, I remember this one time. I
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: had the best mushrooms ever. But I got to eat
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: them every day. I wanted to for basically nothing. It's
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: so cheap to get all these snacks. Even the cured
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: beef heart my like fancy dish, was only five dollars
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: a pound of meat, so it's like a lot of food.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: And I could just slice off thin slices of this
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: cured heart. Oh it tastes so good. I want it. Yep.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Make me want to go back to China again. I
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: was just talking to some guy in my hostel here
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: about China, and I was telling them how great it
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: is teaching there, and you know, working twenty hours a
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: week and saving money and eating the best food in
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: the fricking world. Maybe that's where I'm going next. Okay,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: that's it. That's really it. Those are There's plenty of
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: other snacks, like one hundred other snacks that I could
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: talk about, but they aren't my favorite. So there's like
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: this dried tofu covered in chili oil, and it was good.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I got it for a while, but I was never
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: thinking about how I was gonna get it out. Actually
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: maybe I did sometimes, but it doesn't have the staying
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: power of these other ones. There's high die there's like
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: seaweed in chili oil, and the little packs and that's good.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: But again it doesn't like grab me like the pickled
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: string beans, a noky mushrooms, chili oil, the garlic peas.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Those fried salted peanuts were so good. Okay. The last
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: thing I'll say is hot pot stir fry. So I
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: buy a block. It's congealed beef oil and like a
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of Chinese spices in a hot pot block,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and you can cut off half the block throat in
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: pot of water. You have instant hot pot. Put in
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: your meat and vegetables hot pot. But as far as
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: like my favorite foods that I still make, I made
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: this every day this week. Anytime I make stir fry,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: or I'm making like a shrimp, seafood or steak, anything
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I want to cook. When i'm cooking it, if I
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: want a good, deep, complex flavor, I cut off a
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: square inch of that hot pod base. Then I cook
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the food to the consistency I like it, the texture
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I like it, which is usually al dente. I throw
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that in a bowl. I melt down that square inch
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: of hot pot base, pour that over. Mix it up
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: perfect every time. Just melt it over low heat, because
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: if you do it on high heat, it'll turn kind
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: of brown and the flavor won't be half as rich.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: But if you just melt down the oil on low
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: heat until it's melted completely but still has that very
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: bright red orange chili oil color, it has all of
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: its flavor still in there. You don't have to put
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: it in a pot of water to get the hot
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: pot flavor. You just drizzle that over whatever you have cooked,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: and you have instant amazing Chinese stir fry or whatever
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: food you want. So I have to also mention that
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: because I maybe eat that more than anything else I
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: every time I cook. Basically I'm using that hot pot oil.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: If I have it, you know, there's no way I
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: eat it more than like the pickled string beans. I
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: had box oh my gosh, high tie. That's not a
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: specifically Chinese snack, but dried nori, the seaweed that has
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: to go on this list. That was my favorite snack forever,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and in China, I bought boxes, like huge boxes, literally
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: like a meter long by maybe a third of a
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: meter tall, and it would be ten twelve packs of
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Korean roasted nori. So this is going to be the
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: only non Chinese snack on this list. But it's worth
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: mentioning because that's one hundred and twenty foil packs of
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: dried salted norri like seasoned roasted Norri. And sometimes I
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: would eat an entire box in one night, watch a movie,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: open a pack, drink a beer, eat the pack, open
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the next pack, and I would just open all those packs.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: But that was the main thing I got delivered. So
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: in China, like I mentioned, everything is so convenient. You
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: just get everything delivered to your door. And the thing
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I ordered more than anything else, more times than anything else,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: was seasoned laver or roasted seasoned norri. My mouth is
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: still watering. And sometimes I would drink and then just
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: fall asleep after I ate all of it, after I
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: watched my movies or play video games or whatever, and
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I would wake up and my whole floor would be
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: covered in foil wrappers and little plastic cartons and containers. Yeah,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: once I found out I could order nor online, hundreds
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: of them and have them delivered right to my door
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: for nothing. Again, I think each box was less than
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: one hundred yuan, which is like fifteen bucks US for
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty packs. That's crazy that I ate
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: that many. I remember sometimes I would eat so many
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: that my teeth would start to hurt, like I was
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: chewing on sugar or something. And I know sometimes the
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: boxes were like fifty qui or about seven US dollars,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: so it was anywhere from two cents to a maximum
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: of ten cents per little pack. But I always looked
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: for the sale because they have like one hundred different
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: companies you can buy from, and one of them is
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: always on sale. Yeah, so it caused basically nothing, and
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I just date hundreds of those packs as celebrations and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: then just as routine. So thank you, honorable mention. Favorite foods,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: favorite snacks, pickled string beans, minoki, mushrooms, chili oil, fried
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: salted peanuts, cured beef, hard crunchy garlic, peas, hot pot
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: stir fry mix and roast did seasoned nori. Oh those
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: foods are too good to even think about any longer,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I'll go crazy. So I'm gonna sign off here and
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: go look at plane tickets to China. It was so
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: good talking to you again. Tell me about your snacks.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. A bit of a rambler, Gmail
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: dot com or all thesocials. I'll talk to you soon.