Liuzhou Favorites

Favorite thing: It does not matter how many wheels you have .... two wheels, three wheels or more.... the load has to be transported. Incredible huge loads are moved here and there by all means of transports. Lots of 2 wheelers and 3 wheelers are used to carry heavy and bulky stufff - a common sight on the street.

Favorite thing: If you love bananas, Liuzhou has the cheapest bananas. It comes in katis and 1yuan of it is enough to make you full! Sold usually in pushcarts along streets. The bananas here are fresh and sweet in taste.

Favorite thing: I love corn but the corn sold here is slightly different. It's not reallly soft and juicy but more like glutinous in taste and you need to chew it real well as it's hard. The colour of the grains is of a pale white/cream. Some come in a mixture of colours of white dotted with a few grains of brown/maroon. Many locals seem to enjoy the bite very much. I guess they are used to this type of corn. These are sold everywhere along the streets - usually steamed with a little basin or pot over a small stove. Choose the one you want and the vendor will rip off the leaves and stem for you and you will have a hot steaming corn in a plastic bag.

Price per corn : 1.50yuan

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Favorite thing: These sweeties are usually sold in pushcarts. It's a huge piece of maple syrup sweet with sesame sprinkled on it. The vendor will use a flat "chisel" and a small "hammer" to chip off pieces from the big "pastry" of sweet and thus making the sound "ting..ting..ting.." The sweet is sold in pieces and you can choose which one you like...Once you have chosen, you can request her to chip it further into tiny bit pieces.

The sweet kind of slowly melt in your mouth and if you chew it... the blend of the sesame seeds give it a very nice flavoured taste. Best to eat it as soon as keeping it too long will cause the sweet to "melt" and becomes sticky.

Another pic attached on "closed-up" of the "ting-ting" sweet.

Price per piece : 1yuan

Favorite thing: The Chinese pancakes called "Sau Bin" - means hot pancakes are sold in alot of stalls along the streets. Some shops will prepare and cook the hot pancakes just right in the shop. You will see a huge hot plate where the pancakes are being "baked". The pancakes are of many shapes and with many fillings.

Fondest memory: We tried the pancakes with lotus fillings. Love the crust of the pancakes as it's crunchy and flaky - it's like they have made the pastry in paper thin layers ...
The lotus paste is just nice - not too sweet.

Great for snacks!

Price per piece : 1yuan to 1.50yuan (depending on fillings)

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Favorite thing: While walking towards YuFeng Gongyuan in the morning, we happened to see some locals crowded round a pushcart and as usual, being curious, we took a peek...wow! food! and it looks good. We saw the vendor scooped a big spoonful of the glutinous rice onto a plastic , made a hole in the centre of the rice and put all the yummy stuff into the rice and made it into a ball. We took our turn and keeping our fingers acrossed that it will not be sold off then as the portion on the pan looks like it is finishing. Luckily...we got our share in tasting this "ball of yummy"!

See another picture attached on "Ball of yummy"

Fondest memory: "Ball of yummy" consists of the following :-

*chopped szechuan veggie with meat*
* a spread of margarine *
* crunchy "yu tiao" - chinese deepfried pastry *
* a cut of the chinese sausage *

Price : 1.5yuan, with sausage, without it, it's only 1yuan

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Favorite thing: These are great appetisers! Pickles on sticks : zucchinis, radish, ginger and vegetables bulbs are "threaded" together in sticks. These are sold along the streets. Lots of chillies pieces are seen on top of these pickles and they looked spicy but the taste is not really spicy - more like sourish and sweet and crunchy. I bought the cute looking ones - the vegetable bulbs - interesteing taste with a nice crunch!

Per stick of pickles : 1yuan to 2yuan.

See another pic attached on pickles in bottles

Favorite thing: Herbal drinks are drinks made from boiling Chinese herbs. These drinks are boiled with traditional herbs for a long, long time - maybe for a couple of hours. Some are sweet in taste and some are bitter. You can either have it hot or cold. Each type of drink is for different ailment. You can tell the vendor your ailment and the vendor will prescribe the right type of herbal drink for you. If you need to drink the bitter ones, normally after drinking it, the vendor will give you a small portion of the sweet herbal drink to wash off the bitterness from your mouth. Normally these are sold in pushcarts. During a hot day, it's best to drink the cooling herbal drink - it's very refreshing and has a good cooling effect on the body.

Price per cup is usuallly 2yuan