We fly there on chartered flight that takes us directly from Bandar Seri Begawan to Nanning City. Normally, to get there, one would have to fly to Hong Kong first and then to Guangzhou then Nanning. The direct flight is 3hrs+ and the food sucks since it was cooked at least 4 hours before! They could have ordered food from Royal Brunei Catering!
So this is the first meal I had on Mainland China. Its a value meal with a Zinger burger, a piece of chicken, a soft drink and a Garfield key chain. I guess it is pretty common one would eat fast food first because it is something familiar in a foreign land... Anyway, the food taste exactly the same as in Brunei therefore have maintained the food quality unlike the branches in Miri! (More about the godforsaken food disaster town of Miri in upcoming blogs)
One thing they always say about China online, and by other tourists, is that China is one big giant dirty place. It certainly is different in this city. The people wear gloves when eating in KFC! Interesting isn't it?
This is the restaurant where we have breakfast everyday in China. Its on the 8th floor. They serve a mixture of western and Chinese style breakfast. The breakfast is not spectacular except the potato cooked with butter, cream and cheese and the cute, yet tasty mini beef sausage. Every morning with about 150 Bruneians squeeze into the restaurant, it kinda feel like Brunei at times. Occassionally you will hear "Awu" and "Ia tah tu".
On the second day, we decided to have some local food, which happen to be very cheap. This is the stall in an open air food court nearby the hotel... but there aren't anymore seats left so we have to go else where.
Just round the corner we found this place with lot's of meat. As a meatlover, nothing interest me more.
I ordered this duck drumstick with rice for RMB14 (B$2.80), which is the most expensive thing on the menu (argh that's cheap!). One of the specialty of Nanning is lemon flavoured roast duck. Sadly, there's no guide so I'll have to make do with this sour plum flavoured duck. It taste pretty good but the meat is a challenge to bite. What I really like is the pickled mustard plant that comes with it. That certainly taste better than the ones we have here.
How do we eat a drumstick that is not chopped-up with a chopstick or without getting our hands dirty? Have no fear, the Glove is here! This is the first time i eat anything with a glove on. It feels funny, or maybe its just that my hand is too big. Hehe...
The next day, we have dinner in this cafe at the corner of a mall. What caught my attention is the very cheap steak at RMB 42 (B$8.40) on the announcement board. In the end, I ordered a RMB101 (B$20.20) sirloin steak. I think it is worth it because...
It comes with a glass of red wine,
A serving of Russian soup, or something like that, a piece of bread,
and not to forget the main course with an extra order of spaghetti tossed in butter. That would have set me back at least B$35 if I'm in Brunei. My friend on the other hand ordered
Spare-rib with rice wrapped in lotus leaf. The portion is seriously huge and did you notice the soup, vegetable and pickled mustard plant. It seems like these side dishes always come with an order of rice. Anyway, that meal is very satisfactory with a good environment, tasty food and very friendly service .
We went to try some truly local food. If you research on Nanning cuisine, you will find out that they love these rice-rolls and rice noodle. In fact, they are in most menu, second only to rice. The one up there is mixed sauce rice noodle. Tasty with a strong flavour due to the fermented black beans. The other one is rice roll, or if you are familiar with dimsum, the cheong-fun. What's different here is that they don't eat it as a snack like dim-sum but like a main course hence the larger portion. It comes with a piece of fried egg and vegetables with minced meat inside. It is very soft and certainly tasty. The sauce taste pretty much like Maggi Seasoning Sauce.
We went to a dinner at a big seafood restaurant with whole of 150 plus Bruneian delegates and visiting Minister of Communication. The restaurant smells fishy. That's because they have a huge section of aquariums , cages and baskets of still living seafood. That's the thing about them, seafood have to be as fresh as possible. They have way more types of seafood housed in the restaurant than all of the fish markets in Brunei combined. I think there are at least 15 types of shell fish here. But the most interesting thing I saw here is...
Sea snakes!
Another unusual thing is that waitress will go around putting on seat covers to cover handbags. Its funny that my immediate boss have a struggle with the waitress over her bag. Good thing I can speak Chinese and defuse the situation.
This is my last dinner in China, so far. Yes, you guessed it right we're back in Biz Cafe. That's because we brought along two friends and we took the conservative route and bring them to a non-native restaurant. Now let's guess what is this?
It's frog meat! This is the first time ever I tried eating frog. It looks like chicken and certainly taste like chicken.This taste very, very good actually. But it is kind of oily and the piping hot!
This here is my last supper in China, so far. I did make sure there aren't 13 of us. LOL... Anyway, this premium grilled chicken is the best chicken burger I had. It taste so great and I think Brunei should have this. It taste like chicken steak with some kind of special barbecue sauce. The fries taste just like the one we have here.
After breakfast and frantic last minute shopping, we are on the way home to Brunei. Check out the next 2 posts, one on street-side food and one on supermarkets.
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