I crap you not, I am lost in the confusing names of Chinese dishes

Bowen Bao  

I grew up in Shanghai, China and had Chinese food up the wazoo everyday for the past eighteen years. I had rice up the wazoo, dumplings up the wazoo, and fortune cookies up the wazoo. (Actually no, you can’t find any fortune cookies anywhere in a Chinese restaurant in my hometown.) Since I came to the United States last semester, I feel I am like a bull in a china shop everyday in the dining halls and the restaurants. Due to Chinese people’s habits of translating everything in English to Chinese, I have to relearn every dish’s name. I learned how to order a burrito with Mitchell and my roommate quad Cam, as you have learned in Mitchell’s article. I stopped calling “queso” the “yellow stuff”, and learned that “agua” is hidden in the machine. (I always paid for water). Thanks to my buddies, my life just became so much easier! However, just as I thought I am on the right track, everything changes when I walk into a Chinese restaurant.

As a sequel to the burrito battle article, we got bored one day and went to a very fancy restaurant on South U. On the window of this restaurant, it’s covered with the awards won by Chef Jan. He’s won all the awards for best restaurant, best dish, and best chef for the past five years or so. We were pretty impressed and couldn’t wait to get in. Thanks god, I said to myself, and I thought that I would be a pro in ordering this time. But when we looked at the menu, I knew I was totally wrong. I shit you not, I have never heard of General Tso’s chicken in any Chinese restaurant before. Though later experience proved it is very dank, I am still so surprised that the Chinese here are a different Chinese. “The cooks aren’t actually chinese,” Mitchell whispered to me. I really wish I could go check my self in the back. (side story: Don’t try going to the restroom here. Quad Cam went to the john for so long that we became worried. He said it was quite an adventure, though he didn’t see Chef Jan.)

As our interest in Chef Jan grow, so did our interest in the menu. From my perspective, this is the only Chinese dish on the menu that ever existed in my mind: Kungpao chicken. Every cultural cuisine has its tradition of specific combinations, so no offense, when I saw the Kung pao shrimp, which seemed to be appeared out of the blue, it just makes no sense. And where the hell does Cashew Shrimp come from? I wondered. I was looking forward to try something new so I accidentally ordered a dish called Yu shan chicken. I wondered about what this Yu shan thing was, just as I wondered about queso. This should not happen in a Chinese restaurant, though. So Mitchell became a pro again, getting sweet and sour chicken. Look how happy he got after getting this dish.

Here’s comes to our real food tasting period. My dish is in sliced meat in brown sauce and some bamboo shoots. Oh! I almost cried out when I realised that this is a dish which actually exists in China, a very famous dish in Sichuan. The people there eat a lot of spicy food and there is one bad outcome: you would sweat a lot and probably get swamp ass. The main ingredient is pork in a fish flavoured seasoning. I sighed and looked at my Yu shan chicken, which should be pork, and took a bite. Honestly, it doesn’t taste bad. It is just sweet as hell. As I would realize more and more later, the Chinese dishes are all in a kind of “brown sauce”. It doesn’t have the changing flavour of different regions in China as I expected, but that’s okay. Who made this? I guess it is Chef Jan.

We also got to taste sweet and sour chicken and pepper steak, though they have no similarities to any Chinese dish I have ever had. In China, there is sliced beef with green peppers, but never would I have pieces of beef and green pepper. You might argue that it is the same, but I would not buy it. It’s like having chunks of cheese in a burrito rather than sliced cheese. I don’t like being sound too critical, but I am just totally confused in the Chinese dishes that I should be familiar with. I didn’t expect the Chinese dishes to blow my mind completely.

I have to say, though, according to our squad’s opinion, China Gate is a wonderful place to have lunch. The lunch combo is only 6.99 to 7.99, with wanton soup and white rice. Another tip here, according to Cam: you can make you own delicious brown rice by pouring soy sauce into it. Now, we thought Pancheros and this place were going to be our lunch places, but before we even settle down, a sketchy place near East Quad is going to blow our mind. You’ll find out more in my next article.

See you next time.

Mission Impossible

Rachel Wallace  

In the midst of a foot-and-a-half of sparkling white snow and frigid negative temperature winds, is there any reason worthy of venturing out into the arctic tundra that has become Ann Arbor? I can only think of one: a mission to find the BEST hot chocolate in Ann Arbor. Now in a city where there are dozens of adorable cafés and restaurants both big and small, this seems like a pretty daunting task. I’ll admit that I did have to contain my search.

My first stop was the obvious: Starbucks

I would be surprised if any hot chocolate lover has never tried this abundant drink. I will say it is pretty good. It is rich and dark without being too dark for the average person or child to enjoy. I certainly drank plenty before I finally decided to give coffee a try. All in all I might be biased, but I now find Starbucks hot chocolate pretty boring.

Next up I decided to venture into another U of M staple: Espresso Royale

Having had their plain hot chocolate before, I know that it is very similar to Starbucks. I therefore decided to try the frosted mint flavor they were advertising. It is important to note that while it is called ‘frosted’ mint the drink is in fact hot (don’t ask me why, I don’t know). The best thing about it was its price of $2.70, some of the cheapest hot chocolate I would sample all day. The mint was a different flavor than the peppermint hot chocolate that Starbucks offers and reminded me a lot of an Andes mint. It was interesting and I did enjoy it more than the artificial peppermint flavor of Starbucks, but it was a very strong mint and did overpower the chocolate. It was also overall a very, very sweet drink.

Now that I had visited the most obvious cafes I decided to venture a little further from State street. I decided to go check out Sweetwaters Café.

Here I sampled the classic hot chocolate, $2.65, and the candy cane cocoa, $3.50. The hot chocolate was very mild and very milky. I don’t recommend it unless your favorite part of hot chocolate is the whipped cream. The candy cane cocoa was more exciting. It was a white hot chocolate, which was different. The main flavor was the mint from the candy canes. I believe they used real candy canes because I swear it was like I was drinking Christmas! It was by far the best minty hot chocolate. The drink itself did not have much of a chocolate flavor but it was also not too sweet. I also swear there was a hint of coffee in it. It was a really yummy drink.

I made one stop that I was previously not planning on when I decided to get some lunch at Amer’s. I saw hot chocolate on their menu and thought, ‘why not?’ The hot chocolate there was very sweet. It was rich and tasted like dark chocolate and was topped with really sweet whipped cream. I had trouble finishing the whole thing because of how sweet it was, but it was tasty.

After visiting several cafes specializing in coffee drinks I decided to switch it up and try a place that specializes in chocolate instead. My next stop was Schokolad.

I recommend Schokolad (located on Main Street) for anyone who wants to get some really good chocolate - but I had never tried to order hot chocolate there. Sure enough, when I asked the lady at the counter she said they did in fact sell both milk and dark hot chocolate. I ordered one dark hot chocolate and proceeded to pay the whopping $5.30 pricetag. Now after handing over almost six dollars, I was expecting some top of the line hot chocolate. They did not disappoint. They went over to the chocolate fountains they use to make the chocolate and started filling up the cup. They then added milk to the mixture and used a crazy spinning whisk machine to mix it all together. In defense of the expensive price, the cup of hot chocolate was very big. It was practically a venti at Starbucks. It was also amazing hot chocolate. It tasted like I was eating a rich dark chocolate truffle. It was thick - practically like melted chocolate - but still drinkable. Even so, I do not think any one person would be able to finish the whole thing.

The highlight of my little trip around Ann Arbor was not surprisingly Zingerman’s.

I knew I had to sample the hot chocolate here once I found out that their Mindo hot chocolate is ranked in the top ten hot chocolates nationally by Food & Wine Magazine. It turns out that Zingerman’s Next Door has a whole hot chocolate menu featuring 5 very different types of hot chocolate. The only one I didn’t sample was the Zingerman’s hot chocolate although I have heard that it is very good. I tried the Mindo hot chocolate $4.00, the Mexican hot cocoa $3.50, the Chocolat Moderne Mayan eyes $3.75, and the Spanish drinking chocolate $3.50. My favorite was the Chocolat Moderne Mayan Eyes cocoa. It was unlike any hot chocolate I have ever had! It was spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, chipotle and ancho chiles. During the first sip all of these spices overwhelm your senses then the ancho chile spicy aftertaste kicks in. I would recommend not getting whipped cream on it to really appreciate the flavor of the chocolate. The flavor was so unique that I just kept sipping it to try to figure out exactly what all of the different flavors where. The Mexican hot chocolate was similar in that the chocolate was spiced with cinnamon. The flavor was less complex though. The best way to describe the flavor is to say that it tasted a lot like Red Hots with a hint of nuts as well. The Mindo chocolate was also very good. It is the best classic hot chocolate that I have tasted. It is made with a course ground chocolate instead of syrup which leaves a nice texture in your mouth. The flavor of the chocolate is great and strong without being too sweet or rich. It is nicely balanced by the cream. The last drink I sampled was the Spanish drinking chocolate. It is served with a spoon in a cup about the size of a shot glass. This drink is really just melted chocolate. It is rich, dark, chocolaty and delicious. It is similar to Schokolad’s hot chocolate although it is even thicker. Make sure you finish it before it hardens!

So, after spending way more time walking around in the cold than any sane person should and drinking so much hot cocoa that I probably won’t be able to drink any more for a month, I have decided that Zingerman’s Mayan Eyes is by far the best hot cocoa this city has to offer, but one really can’t go wrong with any of their flavors. Now, next time you are walking through the cold snowy streets of Ann Arbor and it is absolutely vital to fill your mouth with sweet, rich hot chocolate to warm up- you’ll know where to go.