Gaijiaofan and Gaijiaomian: Cheap and Easy Chinese Food
Lanzhou beef noodles shops are popular and widespread around southern Jiangsu. Lanzhou itself is quite far away in China's northwestern Gansu province. Since the area has a lot of Chinese food, this type of food is considered Halal. As a foreigner, cheap noodle shops present a challenge. The menu board behind the counter does not feature pictures, and that can be a problem if you can't read Chinese characters. Instead of harassing Chinese friends to teach me, I have been just going into some noodle places and randomly ordering things and then looking up the Chinese names on my phone afterwards. By doing this, I learned a new category of Chinese food. 盖浇饭 gaijiaofan is simply food served on top of rice. 盖浇面 gaijiaomian is the same, but the hot stir fry is served over noodles. Here are three dishes from my last three visits.
土豆烧牛肉盖浇面 Tǔdòu shāo niúròu gài jiāo mian. This is beef and potatoes over rice.
土豆丝牛肉盖浇饭 Tǔdòu sī niúròu gài jiāo fàn Potato strings and beef over rice.
鱼香牛肉丝盖浇面 Yuxiang niurousi gaijiaomian "Fish-smell" shredded beef over noodles. It's important to keep in mind that when you see "fish smelling" on a menu, it has nothing to do with seafood. It's just a rough translation of the "Yuxiang" flavor and sauce.
Based on these three dishes, my culinary adventure in Lanzhou noodle shops will certainly continue.
Lovely! I have many happy memories of eating those noodles all over China. Never disappointing.
And not too spicy like Hunan and Sichuan food can be like...
I could handle Sichuan spicy, but not Hunan spicy. That fish-dish, buried in red chilli, was too much.
Maybe the spiciness is played down around here. Southern Jiangsu is known for food being more sweet than spicy. Local cooks tend to blunt Hunan and Sichuan foods to meet local tastes. Even if that is so, good god, the local food in Sichuan and Hunan must be mouth scalding.
kinesisk mat äe god
Interesting to see halal food there. Implies the population has big muslim population maybe.
A lot of muslims are in north western china. However, I would wager most of the people eating in the Lanzhou noodle shops are not muslim and siimply like this style of Chinese food. Just speaking from a Changzhou perspective.
Yes, I guess good food is good food.
Speaking of which, time to eat lunch! I am going there to try a lamb dish.