Shantou is renowned for its Chaoshan cuisine, but the blogs go into all aspects of eating in Shantou — recent posts discuss everything from Sichuan hotpot to Brazilian barbecue (in Shantou?!! Yes, who woulda thunk it?).

Word has it that China Daily will do a feature article on the blogs and English food writing in Shantou, so connoisseurs of the delicious should keep their eyes peeled for that.

Check out these sites for more info:

http://media.stu.edu.cn/diane/

http://media.stu.edu.cn/jou4390/

A Shantou food website is also in the works…stay tuned for more details.

The 13th Chaoshan Food Festival will be held in Time Square on November 23th, 2007, according to the Shantou Metropolis (?????). 80 to 100 hotels and restraurants in Shantou to take part in this festival and will display their best thirteen foods at their stalls. Most of these foods will be seafood and poultry. In addition to the Chaoshan food, the festival will also include cuisine from north China.

Related report in Shantou Metropolis(?????):
http://www.dahuawang.com/localnews/showlocal.asp?no=95300

One piece of advice here: take their sushi and oyster. Normally I didn’t have main course but only eat their sushi and oyster, they are so nice!

Share some pictures here. I want to go back again!!

More photos on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/myshantou/tags/dihao/

That’s one thing to write about, but today was special. I was inside coz it’s freezing outside and an old man was chilling out, ?a relative of the owners?, he commented to owners was I a teacher. I said yes I was, at which he said ‘Good morning teacher, how are you?’! He was into his eighties! Owners were equally entertained. He had a great accent. Said he’d learnt English in high school (??).

While we’re on the subject, this isn’t the first time I’ve met an elderly person producing English. I was in the middle of the Chaoshan countryside at a temple in the Chaoan area in 2005. That was the time I broke my foot and my parents had come to visit, so my friend Yen took them around the area including this place, the middle of nowhere and the temple is a 10-15min hike up a hill of steps. So I stayed at the bottom and made friends with the people selling things to sacrifice (mainly fruit and paper ‘money’). There was a really old man there who had been in the navy, and been all over, he kept producing random English words, it was great. It’s amazing where people have been and where they end up.

Address: ???????? Jinfengtan, a bit past.

The snacks we ate: haoguew??????????

It’s next-door-but-three to Haley Cafe of the corner of Jinsha Dong Rd and Huashan Nan Rd. It’s pretty small – there’s an Ouyji (or whatever the spelling) nearby and and hairdressers next to Haley Cafe. A kids games arcade is opposite, as is an academy with basketball courts. The shop is red.

You can eat full for min 6rmb (see the back page of the menu) – dishes cost around 15rmb each.

For those who don’t know: Kejia, Chaoshan and Minnan huas are three dialects belonging to three distinct cultural groups in the east of Guangdong and south of Fujian. They are particularly noted because they have withstood the influence of most national changes to the language and culture and bear a reasonable resemblence to ancient Chinese (so I’m told, it’s also been written on this blog in the comments). Chaoshan and Minnan hua are similar, while Kejia hua more resembles Cantonese. The home of Kejia culture is Meizhou, a three hour bus ride or train ride from Shantou. The Rough Guide is very favourable about the area, which makes a nice change from Lonely Planet.

So… I’m busy – and the internet has been down for a week and a half at school (grr). Daytime English, nighttime tkd and also I have a life to keep up!

Hmm… Went for seafood last Sunday. Outou ?? (ao4 tou2). It’s in a place just outside Shantou called Dahao ?? (da2 hao2), which is really the countryside – swimming, hills, fresh air. Unfortunately you need a car, but the seafood is excellent. In Dahao there’s a place called Outou, which has a row of seafood restaurants. I always get taken to the same one, the one at the end of the row – don’t let those lads standing in the middle of the row steer you in to park, they just want you to eat at theirs (which could well be good, who knows).

Wow, my friend sure ordered a lot. A wide selection of shellfish that you scrape/suck/pick out of shells, snails, crab – raw and fried, green veg, several Chaoshan snacks, a couple of fish and don’t forget the soup. All for 9 people. Delicious. She said it wasn’t very well cooked, but it was good enough for me. And not a sign of bad stomach – very fresh.

I’m sorry I’m rubbish at directions on roads. Ask a local, or even better take someone who knows with you. ??.

The following pictures were taken by my friend’s daughters (who also count as friends!), taken together you can get an idea of the place where you order… food wasn’t their aim in these photos…

Rice, a potato, couple handfulls mo2gu1(dried mushrooms), some beef, some pork, lots spring onions, couple tablespoons oyster sauce. (Quantities: how much rice and meat do you want to eat in a meal?)

Cut the potato up and fry it in oil for a couple of minutes until starting to go golden/burnt. 

Put the potato in the rice pot/cooker with rice and water (water2:rice:1), and start.  If don’t have rice cooker (either very poor or not in Asia) bring rice to boil with lid on, then turn down to lowest heat – don’t remove lid.  Keep on low heat until no water left.  Secret of rice

MEANWHILE: Stirfry meat in oil.  Then stirfry meat, oyster sauce, chopped spring onions and mogu.  When rice is cooked, add in and stirfry for a bit.

Rice tastes of fried potato, delicious – even if you’re not keen on potato.

 Fish ball and jiugua soup:

A jiu1gua1 (kind of veg melon), some fish balls, water, salt, chicken stock, oil.

Bring water to boil with some salt, chicken stock and oil mixed in. 

When boiling, add the jiugua and the fish balls.  Boil on a lower heat until the jiugua isn’t raw, and the fish balls are a bit bigger.  It doesn’t take long – 5 t0 7 minutes.

You can eat both dishes later that day, or the next day.

Lately I’ve been making progress on this issue, fuelled by the willingness of a family I’ve come to know to invite me to their house and let me watch whoever’s cooking and ask small but annoying-in-large-quantity questions like ‘what’s that sauce?’ ’so you put them in together then?’ ‘what’s that? where do I buy it? how do I ask them to prepare it?’ (Market sellers often prepare meat seafood and veg to your whim, no wonder cooking’s so quick, everything’s already gutted, skinned, sliced, shelled, peeled and had the ends chopped off).

Then I thought, I should share this wisdom with English speakers who aren’t blessed with Chinese parents.  So…