Tianjin dining culture is renowned throughout China, and not
only the traditional Tianjin snacks, but the cuisines from other
regions of China can also be found. Food Street is a fairly good
place for you to sample these cross-cultural Chinese dishes. These
traditional and famed snacks cannot be missed should you ever come
to visit this charming municipality.
Goubuli Steamed Stuffed Bun (Goubuli
Baozi)
Goubuli's stuffed buns are known for their generous filling,
which is succulent but not greasy.
This famous snack was created during the late Qing Dynasty by a
native of Wuqing County, who had the nickname "Dogy". At the age of
14, Dogy left home and came to Tianjin, where he was apprenticed to
a restaurant specializing in stuffed buns.
A diligent and honest young man, he eventually opened a shop of
his own. As his stuffed buns tasted better and had a unique
flavour, they attracted an increasing number of customers. As time
went by, his nickname became known far and wide. Later, people
changed "Dogy" to "Goubuli", which literally means "the Dogy who
doesn't talk", because he was often too busy to speak to his
customers. Then, eventually, his buns were called by the same
name.
Today, with its main outlet located at Shandong Road, Heping
District, the Goubuli Bun Shop has developed into a corporation
with 89 branch restaurants opened in Tianjin and two dozen other
Chinese cities, provinces and regions. In addition to over 90
varieties of stuffed bun, its restaurants also offer more than 200
dishes.
Goubuli Dumpling
Restaurant
No77 Shandong Street,
Heping District, Tianjin
Tel: 27302540 /
27303277
Ear-Hole Fried Cake (Erduoyan Zhagao)
The Ear-Hole Fried Cake is another one of the famous traditional
Tianjin snacks. It derived its name from the narrow Ear-Hole Street
in Tianjin's Beidaguan, where the shop selling it was located.
The Ear-Hole Fried Cake has a history of more than 80 years. lt was
introduced by a man named Liu Wanchun, who peddled it on a
single-wheel barrow from street to street.
When his business prospered, he rented a room and opened Liu's
Fried Cake Shop. Because the fried cake he made was of high
quality, reasonable in price and had a special flavour, it soon
became a popular snack.
The cake is made of carefully leavened and kneaded glutinous
rice dough. The filling is bean paste made with good-qualified red
beans. The pastry of the finished cake is golden in colour, crisp
and crunchy, while the filling is tender and sweet with a lingering
flavour.
Fried Dough Twist (Ma hua)
Although plain in look, this queue-shaped fried dough is by no
means easy to make. Each bar of dough is made with quality flour
and then fried in peanut oil.
The bars are usually stuffed with a variety of fillings, most
often the waxy tasting beanpaste (Dou sha) - a taste for only the
hardy.
Since it can be preserved for several months, you can take some
of this crispy specialty back home to share with family.
Chatang
Chatang is Tianjin's traditional snack. It is made of baked
millet and glutinous millet flour. The soup is made by pouring
boiling water to the mixed flour and then adding sugar or brown
sugar.
The way chatang being served at stalls is as attractive as the
soup itself. The water is boiled in a big copper pot whose spout is
usually fashioned into a dragon's head. While making the soup, the
skilled chatang maker holds severaI bowls in one hand and pours the
boiling water into them from quite a distance.
Guobacai
A snack of strong local flavour, guobacai is a sort of pancake
made of millet and mung bean flour. The pancake is sliced and
cooked in the sauce made of sesame oil, chopped ginger, soy sauce,
preserved beancurd and green onion. Guobacai is often served along
with fried dough and sesame cakes.
Tangdui
It is a custom in Tianjin to eat tangdui on the eve of the
Chinese New Year. The most popular tangdui is made of hawthorn
berry. Hawthorn berries have their seeds removed and are skewered
on a thin bamboo stick, then dipped in hot syrup. When they turn
cool, the stringed berries wrapped in crystal sugar look like
beautiful stone beans pungently sweet and sour.
Sometimes, the hollowed hawthorn berries are filled with red
bean paste, walnut and melon seeds. Today, in addition to hawthorn,
a wide variety of tangdui has been developed, including water
chestnut, tangerine, apple, pear and crab-apple, etc.
Where to go:
Food Street (Shipin Jie) is like a shopping mall, only
full of food. There are two levels and about 50 restaurants, all
under one roof. Some are dirt cheap street stalls, others are more
like sweet shops, some are top of the range restaurants with prices
to match. Make sure you check prices before you order - they're
rarely displayed. There are plenty of good dumpling restaurants and
you can also eat dog, snake and most of the more unusual Chinese
dishes.
List of Characteristic Restaurants in Tianjin
Please click here.
(mengheng.com)
