Food (English)
大家好！
It’s the end of October already!
From Chinese breakfast pancakes to fast food giants around every corner, deciding what to eat here always seems like a massive impossible task. However, 2 months in we've finally discovered our favourite foods.
We’re here to tell you all about the food around 天津 Tianjin and what we normally eat.
Our school has 2 canteens but one of them is inconveniently far away so we mostly only go to the nearer one. This one has three floors and a good wide range of snacks, breakfast foods and meals. The campus canteens are insanely cheap compared to back home, with snack foods such as bao buns costing a matter of pence, and filling meals being no more than £1.60 at a push.
On school days we don’t often have time for breakfast beyond grabbing a wee pastry out of the supermarket. Kima often gets a Shandong style breakfast pancake for lunch but other highlights of the canteen include a western stall selling chicken burgers, a korean stall selling tteokbokki and bibimbap, and our comfort noodle stall selling the noodles many of us got on the first day here.
When we do have time for an actual breakfast, Kima likes to go to the Fruit Shop and get some pick ’n’ mix fruit and yoghurt. However, the shop next door plays a right earworm of a tune 24/7 and is so incredibly annoying.
Just outside of the West Gate is a street market full of smells, some nicer than others. One night at the street market, Niamh somehow managed to spend a whole £10 on an array of beef, chicken, lamb and vegetable skewers. To this day she still isn't sure if she had been scammed or not! Making a special appearance at the night market are different types of fried bugs, such as mealworms and crickets, although we’re pretty sure no had been brave enough to try them yet!
As mentioned, there's loads to eat there but Kima prefers to eat at restaurants and have full meals. Just behind the market are plenty of restaurants including one decked out with french flags which sells the most delicious honey roasted aubergine. It doesn’t taste like a vegetable at all, just like crisp sweet joy.
In the middle of the city, in Heping Lu shopping centre are plenty of restaurants including a sushi restaurant where we’ve been multiple times, including for Niamh’s birthday. You order the sushi on a screen and it comes down a conveyor belt to your table. It might seem futuristic but in most restaurants you order by QR code, such as any of those typical cheaper Chinese restaurants just outside the shopping centre with barely any seats but delicious food.
Tianjin of course has restaurants from all over the world too. There are American fast food restaurants, Indian restaurants, and of course the same faddy café style eateries as back home. Kima went to one in the south of the city for a classy chicken burger.
And with that we conclude our experience of the culinary delights of 天津 (so far).
Niamh and Kima
柯娜 和 基马