Burnt Tongue = Happy Tummy

Saturday night I found a gem.  I love finding great places to eat that others might not dare try.  Saturday I was walking this street near us that is packed with cabs around lunch and dinner times.  I've walked the street before browsing the restaurants but this time I was determined to eat at one of the many hole in the wall joints the cabbies flock to a meal time.  Its a pretty dirty street and most the restaurants have only 4-8 tables. I walked into two places and was turned off by hardly recognizable meats or various other things that I wasn't brave enough to try.  The third place I walked into appeared quite clean and three men there had their heads down slurping soup with noodles.  There wasn't much talking between the men so I assumed the soup was good.  Since it was chilly and rainy I decided that would be perfect so I pointed at one man's bowl and asked for jaozi (dumplings) and waited patiently. 

The soup that arrived was a delicious pork broth garnished with green onions and the noodles were fresh and delicious.  It was like ramen noodle soup but much better than a packet.  I added some of the chili paste left at the table as a condiment and achieved the perfect amount of spiciness.  I literally burnt the roof of my mouth because I wasn't patient enough to let each bite cool.  This is actually why slurping is not considered rude in chinese culture.  They believe its good to add warmth to the body (thus they drink hot or room temperature tea and never iced tea) and soups are served extremely hot.  Rather than blow every spoonful or every chopstick pinch of noodles they take air in with the soup which cools it.  My slurping must be below par as the roof of my mouth did get burned but it was worth it. 

My dumplings arrived and were equally delicious.  They were not the best dumplings I've tried here but complimented the soup nicely.  I liked that they came in a bowl which collected any juices that leaked out of the dumplings.  The portions were large enough that I left more than full and still took enough soup and dumplings home for Bri to eat the leftovers for her lunch.    The combination of the two dishes was perfect for a cool rainy day and I'll definitely go back to try some of the other dishes.

I'm anxious to do a little more research with people in the know because I don't think the family running it were from this part of China.  They wore little hats like a yamaka and seemed to have trouble communicating with some of the other customers which made me think they weren't used to speaking Mandarin.  They had pictures of yaks and mountains on the wall.  They're mountain not too far from Shanghai but yaks there are none.  I'm betting they're from a province in North Central China or maybe near Tibet. 

Matt