<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.1.3" />  <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/wp-content/themes/whiteasmilk/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/feed/" /> <link rel="alternate" type="text/xml" title="RSS .92" href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/feed/rss/" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 0.3" href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/feed/atom/" /> <link rel="pingback" href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/xmlrpc.php" /> <link rel='archives' title='October 2008' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2008/10/' /> <link rel='archives' title='September 2008' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2008/09/' /> <link rel='archives' title='August 2008' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2008/08/' /> <link rel='archives' title='July 2008' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2008/07/' /> <link rel='archives' title='May 2008' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2008/05/' /> <link rel='archives' title='April 2008' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2008/04/' /> <link rel='archives' title='March 2008' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2008/03/' /> <link rel='archives' title='February 2008' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2008/02/' /> <link rel='archives' title='January 2008' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2008/01/' /> <link rel='archives' title='December 2007' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2007/12/' /> <link rel='archives' title='September 2007' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2007/09/' /> <link rel='archives' title='August 2007' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2007/08/' /> <link rel='archives' title='June 2007' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2007/06/' /> <link rel='archives' title='May 2007' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2007/05/' /> <link rel='archives' title='April 2007' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2007/04/' /> <link rel='archives' title='November 2004' href='http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/2004/11/' /> <link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd+xml" title="RSD" href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/xmlrpc.php?rsd" />  <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow" /> <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/sociable/description_selection.js"></script><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/sociable/sociable.css" /><style type="text/css">a.rsswidget{display:inline !important;}a.rsswidget img{background:orange;color:white;}</style> <style type="text/css">.recentcomments a{display:inline !important;padding: 0 !important;margin: 0 !important;}</style> </head> <body> <div id="page"> <div id="header"> <h1><a href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog">Sour Grapes</a></h1> <p id="blog_description">the Amy Winehouse of food blogs</p> </div> <hr class="hrhide" /> <div id="content" class="narrowcolumn"> <h2 class="pagetitle">Archive for May, 2008</h2> <div class="navigation"> <div class="alignleft"></div> <div class="alignright"></div> </div> <div class="post"> <h3 id="post-156"><a href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/yang-shuo-banana-pancakes-mifen-and-markets.html" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Yang Shuo - Banana pancakes, mifen, and markets">Yang Shuo - Banana pancakes, mifen, and markets</a></h3> <small>Saturday, May 3rd, 2008</small> <div class="entry"> <p><a href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/mifen3.jpg" title="mifen for breakfast!!"><img src="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/mifen3.jpg" alt="mifen for breakfast!!" /></a></p> <p>The one thing Yangshuo has a lot of is banana pancakes. Hippies and banana pancakes. Almost every “western” restaurant in the city has the identical menu, which is a blessing to some, and a curse to everyone else. While abstaining from a comprehensive review of the local western food scene we can safely say that if you want burgers, pizza, passable French or American-Italian food you need look no further. For those wishing to look past the backpacker diet, the town and surrounding area is well worth a visit from a local-food point of view. There’s no lack of Chinese restaurants, look for snails, either alone or stuffed with pork and of course the local beer fish.</p> <p>Another regional specialty is rice noodles (mi fen, 米粉), either fried or more often served in soup with a variety of toppings (picture above), at the very least some pickled vegetables and a bit of pork, maybe even a few snails (tian luo, 田螺) if you want. It’s the local fast food and about 4 rmb/bowl depending on your toppings. I had it almost every day for breakfast, bar a few lapses into the realm of the banana pancakes and some roast pork baozi. Be forewarned that although the local palate is not necessarily into spicy, when they ask you if you can “chi la” they mean it. You can find these at many stalls around town, starting about 7:00am.<br /> Another popular dish is sandpot congee. Now I’m not a big congee fan, rice gruel is usually pretty boring, but a variety of restaurants, many near the food market (see below), offered this. Look for large tables covered in small bubbling sand pots which you then personalise with a selection of other dishes.</p> <p> <a href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/yang-shuo-banana-pancakes-mifen-and-markets.html#more-156" class="more-link">Read the rest of this entry »</a></p> </div> <p class="postmetadata">Posted in <a href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/category//china/" title="View all posts in China" rel="category tag">China</a>, <a href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/category//china/guangxi/" title="View all posts in guangxi" rel="category tag">guangxi</a> <strong>|</strong> <a href="http://www.mbefooddesign.com/blog/yang-shuo-banana-pancakes-mifen-and-markets.html#respond" title="Comment on Yang Shuo - Banana pancakes, mifen, and markets">No Comments »</a></p>  </div> <div class="navigation"> <div class="alignleft"></div> <div class="alignright"></div> </div> </div> <div id="sidebar"> <ul>  <li class="pagenav"><h2>Pages</h2><ul><li class="page_item"><a 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