One of the benefits of my job as producer for Koppel on Discovery is that I get to travel. Often that means going into war zones or reporting from the sites of natural and man-made disasters. On assignment, we often try to give ourselves some respite from the chaos of our work by making sure we have at least one good meal every day.
Our expectations on arriving in China’s Sichuan region were that the food would be spicy. Little did we know that spicy would actually mean fiery hot. Fortunately, we found a restaurant just across from our hotel that became our personal canteen fittingly named Cheers.
We began to order specific dishes at every meal: fried eggplant, onions and mushrooms seasoned with smoky bacon and peppers was a favorite. The owners came to know us and would often send us treats to express appreciation for our patronage.
There were few places of note beyond Cheers. We did find an Italian restaurant – I thought the food was awful, but some of my colleagues found it a good alternative to Chinese. Although the pastas were overcooked and pizzas too doughy, the pastry bakery attached to the shop was fantastic. The baker had spent time in Europe – Belgium, I believe -- and he brought to Chongqing recipes for wholegrain seeded rolls, cheese bread and my all-time pastry favorite, macaroons.
Datong
Every time we ventured out of the city we had to face the dilemma of where to eat. I was particularly worried in the village of Datong -- the site of a coal mine that supplies 90 percent of Chongqing's energy. Driving into town I was put off by the 1960s brutalist architecture. You could tell this was a town that was thrown up to accommodate the coal miners and little else. Where would we find a meal here?
Of course, as it's a company town, the coal mine owns everything. After meeting in a very old, nearly crumbling former school on a cold snowy morning without heat (which is common throughout this region of China), our host announced that a banquet had been prepared for us in a nearby restaurant.
We walked through the snow and came to the entrance of a place heaving with midday diners. The food was great. As it was colder inside than outside, I devoured the soup – the obligatory first course in China. Several new dishes appeared for Round 2. Even inside China it’s assumed that only half of the Chinese food offered will be eaten. All of the dishes were great, the vegetables in particular.
One dish common in Sichuan cuisine is tripe (cow stomach), and it turned up during our lunch. The wonderful thing about tripe is that no matter how you cook it -- this method used lots of peppers and other spices -- you can always smell a familiar odor. As soon as it was placed on the table I knew what it was and, better yet, that I was intent on avoiding it. Datong was the one place in China where we were actually served steak. They didn’t have the best cuts, but it was the only time I got cut sirloin in a Chinese restaurant.
