I Cracked

Yesterday, I cracked and went on a hunt for honest-to-goodness food. I looked up this small chain store, Lohao City 乐活城, whose stated mission was to provide the people of Beijing with good, whole food that hadn't been spoiled or muddled with. Essentially, a Whole Foods in Beijing. Or something like it. In my quest, I was becoming rather disgruntled as the directions given to me were totally wrong; I wasn't finding it and everyone I asked in my stilted Chinese said they had never heard of a "乐活城." So, I walked on and passed by this cafe named "Jing Fun Veggie Cafe." I thought if anyone knew where this place was it would be the people working in a vegetarian cafe. Sure enough, they told me exactly where it was. Since I already had passed though, I decided I would come back for dinner.

Lohao City was ... much smaller than I imagined it would be, but it carried some really nice stuff, stuff that I would have bought... if I had a kitchen with equipment in China. Raw cashews, frozen sorbets and fresh veggies, tons of different kinds of grains, beans and dehydrated veggies... and all in expensive-for-China-but-cheap-for-America prices. I ended up buying a couple packets of freeze-dried fruit and mushroom chips.

While the dinner at Jing Fun was good, I wouldn't consider it by any means an awesome dinner. The pasta was kind of bleh, and a little rich considering all the food I've been eating (rich and oily). I got a free cup of delicious bean soup, though. And this cheese plate which I thought was cheese... but turned out to be more of a cheese salad, four different kinds of cheese tossed w/ olive oil, olives and baby tomatoes. Which I devoured slowly because I've gone almost a month without cheese.

Then, I got home and systematically ate myself through the freeze-dried fruit and mushroom chips. Hm... I wonder what that means. The problem with freshness in Beijing is that if you buy fruit, you pretty much have to eat it the same day. Even if you leave it in the fridge, it spoils within the day. This makes me feel that it's not really fresh and it makes me not want to buy it again (bad experience with a banana). A bit of a problem. Anyway.

Today, I went on a similar expedition, except since it was further I employed use of SMS and invited a few people to go. Two people ended up going with me, and my roommate (who decided to stay back and do her hw cuz she's Asian like that) asked me to please please get her some bread. Salty bread, because for some reason in China all the bread has this sweet taste to it.

After walking down the embassy street for what seemed like an eternity, we finally made it to Comptoirs de France, this small chain bakery/patisserie offering sandwiches, breads and sweets. And because I'm a spoiled rich American girl who compared it to American prices and deemed it supercheap even by American standards, I decided to purchase 135元 worth of stuff... about $20.00. Which, considering what I bought, came out to be about American price. Which, in the state that I was (craving anything but Chinese food) was perfectly reasonable. My companions didn't think so, though, and one started complaining about the price while taking her wallet out to pay for her sandwich. Which was half-covered by another friend who had a scholarship that gave him $3000.00 to spend on whatever the hell he wanted.

A baguette, a bag of chouquettes, six macarons, a cannelle and two meringues later, we left in search of the second place I wanted to visit; Boucherie Michel, whose establishment boasted meats, sausages, cheeses, wines, the like. We found it and discovered that holy crap, the price of cheese was severely inflated in China; it was more expensive than in America. But, of course, I bought a wedge of Mimolette cheese (I wanted Camembert cuz roomie is a fan but they didn't have it), which happened to be the most expensive cheese there. Go figure.

Within a timespan of about one hour, I spent close to 200元, 20% of my allotted monthly salary in China. For which, my  mother will not be happy about, because she wanted me to stay within 1000元 so in October she wouldn't have to dish out anything extra. But I'm happy. My stomach's happy. I can go back to eating Chinese food again. Everyone's favorite dish here is steamed broccoli. Infer why.