Try Marco Polo's taste of Chengdu at Milan Expo
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Stir-fried tofu in hot sauce |
It would be a pity if the Italian traveler Marco Polo didn't taste the now world famous Chengdu cuisine when he stayed in the city 700 years ago. But you are more lucky than him as you can spare thousands of miles of travel to enjoy the delicious authentic Chengdu cuisine in Milan Expo from July 6.
Chengdu, China's largest western city, will present spicy and delicious traditional cuisine, fantastic local opera, tea art and other unique Chengdu cultural and artistic performances to the world during the "Expo Chengdu Week" .
At the World Expo China Pavilion, visitors from countries across the world are impressed with the unique flavor of spicy diced chicken with peanuts, fish-flavored eggplant cakes, stir-fried tofu in hot sauce, dan dan noodles, pearl-ship meat balls and other traditional dishes.
As Asia's first city to be awarded with the United Nations' World Food Capital, Chengdu cuisine is diverse with varied flavors. As one of China's cultural legacy, Chengdu cuisine is known for "the most tasteful city in China" .
In fact, Italian learned about Chengdu much earlier than the "Expo Chengdu Week". In the year 1,287, the Italian Marco Polo visited Chengdu with his father along the ancient Silk Road. He was stunned to see the bustling city and honored the city as extreme prosperous and unbelievably impressive in his book "Travels of Marco Polo".
Authentic Chengdu cuisine is an inalienable part of Marco Polo impression of Chengdu. He once stayed long at Chengdu's Anshun bridges where is a well-known enclave of restaurants in Chengdu.
Chengdu elements are also common in the local cuisine in Italy. Some restaurants offer a small box filled with bright red pepper while serving the pre-dinner bread. The spicy taste is cool when you eat the fresh bread accompanied by delicious red pepper. This way of eating is said to be the authentic "Chengdu taste."
In addition to food, Chengdu also brings Sichuan local opera, brocade, embroidery and giant panda toys that are representative of the "Chengdu elements".
The two exhibitions "virtual experience area" and "depth of experience area" are held in the Milan World Expo China pavilion "Chengdu Week" exhibition, which will offer the visible and tangible experience of "The taste of Chengdu" for the audiences. There is a full stage showing Chengdu traditional culture including Sichuan embroidery, Sichuan figured satin, Sichuan opera, and tea ceremony and etc.
More than that, the outdoor plaza also provides an activity propaganda point of "greeting and invitation from panda home", where it invites visitors to fill out the panda postcards, write the blessings to friends and relatives, and send it into the cute Panda mailbox.
These postcards will be brought back to Chengdu after the event, covered with a special kind of postmark panda claws, then sent back through Panda mail offices to the world. According to a Chengdu friend at the activity site, it has a lottery draw for lucky tourists during the event, who will receive a "Chengdu tourism passport with a gift package and Chengdu tourism information with the postcards.
The "Chengdu Week" will continue to run to July 12. You cannot miss it if you are deeply attracted by the "The taste of Chengdu."
