I have two things to say about my time living in Xiamen. One sentence means that it is eaten in Chaoshan, and another sentence means that it is not Shantou beef hotpot. Neither of them is real beef hotpot. This shows how famous Shantou’s food is.
(The rice rolls we ate at that time)
The first thing we ate when we came to Shantou was rice rolls.
If strictly speaking, rice rolls can only be classified as Guangdong delicacies, and each city in Guangdong will divide rice rolls with different regional flavors according to the conditions of each region, so there will be rice rolls from various places in Guangdong. There used to be a Guangdong Meizhou rice roll downstairs in our company, and that restaurant was the best I've ever tasted in Xiamen. When I came to Shantou this time, I thought about what the characteristics of their rice rolls would be.
(The rice rolls I ate at that time)
Since the rice rolls can only be eaten when they are hot, they will stick together when cold and the taste will be much different. The rice rolls that have just come out of the steamer are different. They will have a unique rice aroma that will reach your nose with the heat.
I have two judgments about delicious rice rolls. The first thing is that the soup should be delicious with a little salty aroma, and the second thing is that the rice rolls should melt in your mouth and have a little bit of viscosity.
I ordered beef-flavored rice rolls. It felt a little sticky when I entered it, and I could smell the aroma of rice. The meat and eggs in the rice rolls are just right to balance out the monotonous taste, and the beef inside is chewy enough for me to take a few bites.
Although the rice rolls tasted good at that time, because I was used to eating rice rolls from the restaurant downstairs of my company, it didn’t surprise my taste buds much.
(A place to eat beef hot pot)
This shop is located next to a small city in Shantou. When they make beef hotpot, they cut the beef on the chopping board, and there are various beef parts on the window.
I usually choose a place near the window when I like to eat. The advantages of this location are: first, you can observe the color and freshness of the ingredients through the light, and second, you can see the scenery of people coming and going outside the window.
(The dishes at that time had a lot of meat because I like to eat meat)
We chose a seat by the window and sat down, ordered a mandarin duck hotpot and waited for the food to be served.
The food in this store is also very fast, and we had all the food in a short time. These meats are very bright in color when viewed in the light, with red and white colors, which makes people very appetizing.
I used chopsticks to pick up the beef because they had just cut it. These beefs don't fall apart when pinched like the ones I've had in the past. Their beef needs some effort, which gives a sense of how fresh the beef is. I can feel the elasticity of the beef when I pick it up with chopsticks, and it will be cooked within a few seconds of putting it in the pot.
I had this piece of beef without dipping sauce. It was very chewy and had a little elasticity in my mouth, allowing me to take more bites. This beef tastes very good even without dipping sauce.
I like eating beef balls very much, and the most famous one in my area is Shantou beef balls. I brought some of the beef balls from this store to my colleagues when I went back. They also felt that the quality of the beef balls here was very good.
This store offers me two kinds of beef balls, one is beef tendon balls and the other is beef balls.
The beef tendon balls have a stringy feeling in the mouth, but I don’t really like the texture of this kind of meatballs. I still prefer beef balls that are elastic and leave juice in my mouth. My colleague said that their meatballs don’t feel sticky to the teeth, and the beef flavor is more intense, making them very refreshing to eat.
(The store where we had casserole porridge at that time)
We felt a little tired after eating beef hot pot for lunch. Our classmate from Shantou recommended the delicious casserole porridge that he often eats. He said that the taste of this casserole porridge is something we can't eat in Xiamen.
We saw at the door that this restaurant was recommended by CCTV, and when we walked in it was almost full of queues, with few empty seats. We waited in the store for a while before we got a seat.
(Their porridge casserole)
Chinese people like to drink hot porridge, so porridge is usually cooked on the spot. We can see the busy chefs of this restaurant from our seats. Their porridge cook kept stirring it with a big spoon, and we had to wait for almost ten minutes before it was served.
When this casserole porridge arrived, the color and color really disappointed the reputation of his store. The casserole is veryroughand also very simple. Moreover, the porridge is a little yellowish, much like the color of paper that has been used for a long time. The coriander and crab styles in the casserole porridge don't match well.
When I served a bowl, the color of the porridge became very beautiful in the small bowl. When I use a spoon to remove the rice grains, the rice grains on top are like pearls one by one. Especially under the light, it is very crystal clear. When the rice is eaten, the aroma will remain on the tip of the button for a long time, and the unique sticky feeling of the rice is very satisfying.
If you drink the soup carefully and taste it slowly, you can tell that the porridge has the unique aroma of bone soup. I suspect that the aroma of this porridge comes from the big bone soup, and it has a unique salty taste that will make people keep drinking this porridge. The two of us finished the porridge in less than ten minutes.
Although this porridge is delicious, the portion is obviously a little too small for a foodie like me. When we left, we said that if we ordered two pots, it might not be enough for us.
(Lin Rong Kee Pork Belly Hot Pot Soup, because the color of the same product was too bad, readers had to code it)
Lin Rongji Pork Belly Soup was the last delicacy we tasted in Shantou. This was also recommended to us by a classmate from Shantou. The hot pot restaurant is not far from this store, and we arrived there within a few steps.
Their store is also very simple, if not recommended by classmates. We would have missed this shop. When you walk in, you can see a big pot of pork belly being cooked in the shop. The large pot of soup had a milky white soup base with the pork belly floating on top.
We each ordered a bowl of pork belly dumplings. When the pork belly dumplings were put on it, the pork belly dumplings began to turn a little yellow again, and the oil on them reminded me of the soup base I drank when I was a kid. This pork belly soup has a very strong flavor. With the addition of coriander, you can smell it even without getting close to the bowl.
This pork belly has two sides: one side is milky white, and the other side is tan. This pork belly doesn't taste like any fishy smell of pork, and they still retain the original flavor of the pork belly. It's not like some restaurants where the fishy smell is gone, but the aroma of the meat is also gone. When you put it in your mouth, there will be a slight resistance on your teeth, but the meat is very easy to eat, and it became rotten within a few bites.
The dumplings inside this pork belly dumpling are not as elastic as the dumpling wrappers we eat on the platform because they have been cooked for too long. It will taste a little bit rotten. Moreover, the aroma of the pork in the dumplings completely changed to the taste of pork belly soup, and the pork belly inside was no longer chewy. But the chewy meat of the pork belly actually gave me the chance to eat it, and the pepper inside made it even more delicious. After finishing this bowl, my nose was filled with this aroma.
I used to think that delicious dumplings must have a deep inside that retains the flavor of each ingredient, and the wrapper must be chewy. The dumplings in pork belly soup do not meet these characteristics, but they still feel very delicious to me. The taste of this dumpling is completely supported by this bowl of pork belly soup, without this soup. I think the reason why they made this dish is clever.
When I came to Shantou, the tourist attractions did not leave much impression on me, but their food can really surprise people. Their methods make their dishes have their own characteristics, and the portion size cannot be said too much, but it is no problem to say that it is half full. Another problem is that the prices of the dishes here are a bit higher even compared to the food in Zhongshan Street, Xiamen.