Chengdu Restaurants

We dined at the Hostel as it was pouring and did not feel like venturing too far after our exhausting day at Leshan visiting the Giant Buddha. The food did not disappoint.

After explaining to the owner of the Teddy Bear Hotel (Andy) that I do not eat celery - he wasn't sure of this word/vegetable, so took me to the rear of the hotel - to the kitchen and showed me the vegetables on offer and asked me to point out the ones I didn't eat !!!!!

Then asked me if there was anything in particular I did like and hence food cooked to your liking - the food was the best we'd sampled in China.

If you are staying or visiting Mt Emei drop into the Teddy Bear Hotel and try their Eggplant Dish it is mouthwatering and I wished I'd stayed in the kitchen to learn to cook this magnificent dish.

None of the staff in this restaurant spoke much English, and our attempts at Mandarin were met with puzzlement and laughter (in our defense, the Sichuan dialect is very different!), but none of that mattered. Since we couldn't read the menu, our friendly waitress took us on a tour of the restaurant to see what other diners were enjoying and point out what we wanted to try, and nobody minded at all!

In the middle of our table was a massive pot of stew sunk over a brazier; divided into two halves, one filled with a dark red, fiercesomely hot and spicy and full of orangy fat and chilli peppers, while the other side contained a pale chicken broth - the 'wimp soup'! Then our choices started to arrive; lots of little plates similar to tapas. We had potatoes, strips of beef, mushrooms, noodles, tofu and ham, all of which came raw for you to chuck into the pot and cook. Once ready, you fish them out with your chopsticks, dip them in individual pots of oil and garlic, and enjoy!

It's a good place to take a large group of people and spend several hours over your dinner with a few beers. Lots of the parties of Chinese men were having to strip their tops off, they were sweating so much from the spices! Our selections, plus 2 soft drinks, came to 68Y.

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When people think of Chengdu, they immediately think of hotpot. Introduced from Chongqing, Chengdu hotpot has its own style ranging from simple spicy to moderate, three or four kinds of spices, as well as fish head hotpot, medical herbs hotpot, etc. If you're not into spicy food then you should avoid these restaurants like the plague. Me, I like spicy food so went to this one located along Renmin Beilu.

What they do in one of these places is bring along a choice of hot-pot - a very large bowl filled with cooking oil and tons of chillies plus a well section in the middle filled with water and other things. You then order different kinds of meat, veg and salad stuff and cook them in the hot-pot as there's a gas burner underneath it at your table. I ordered a "mandarin duck hot-pot" which came with absolutely tons of chillies and other spicy stuff. Now, I like spicy food - just ask my local Indian take-away, but this was beyond anything I had even eaten in India. I ordered some beef and salami like ham sausage and a waitress showed me what to do plus I went over and looked at what another couple were doing plus what they had ordered as I hadn't a clue as to what to do. I also ordered some cabbage, potatoes, spring onions and bean sprouts to go with the meat which were put in the middle section. The hot-pot seemed to take a long time to get heated up and all the waitresses were watching what I was doing from time-to-time. The meat started to cook and I tried to fish it out of the oil using a draining spoon but then it was really slippery to get hold off with chop-sticks, which I have fun with at the best of times. The veg was cooking quickly by this time and so when I tried to fish it out, it had all but disappeared and I was making a mess everywhere, including on myself! Can't really see the point of it instead of being a bit of fun but I suppose, for the locals, it's just a way of life. Plus it wasn't cheap either!

This restaurant is located in the south of the city where there are loads of restaurants and is best reached by taking bus No.55 if staying in the north of the city. This is serious carnivore food as you'd expect from a Tex Mex. I had 2 good smallish steaks as part of one dish, fries, veg and garlic bread plus a small bottle of beer for Y100.

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It is a popular area full of restaurants, bars, KTVs and massage shops. The Food is typically local and cheap, for example with 8.3 EUR, you can eat a 1.5kg fish, plus 2 dishes and a nice beer. :)

Favorite Dish: BBQ fish (local specialty)

We wanted to go to this restaurant (name soon) because of a Lonely Planet recommendation. When we got there, all we saw was what you see in the below photo. Maybe we missed it. But I doubt it. So, consider this an update to the LP.

Favorite Dish: Didn't get a chance to find out.

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The name is Irish, and they serve fish and chips and Guiness, but the feel inside is as follows:
"Old Hippie" sung by none other than the Bellamy Brothers, gold and silver foil with red lanterns...

Anything but an Irish feel. The food's good, the atmosphere fits a western bar, possibly even a pub. But the Guiness cost 60 yuan a pint, which is outrageous, especially since it was flat and tasted watered down... we went hee because the other places we tried in the area didn't appeal or said they were full... or didn't exist any more. Oh well.

If you're looking for a good place to go for western/Irish food, this is it. But it's not cheap.

They have TV for the big games...

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Favorite Dish: Fish and Chips... good batter, good fish... I've had better, but I can't complain at all about theirs.

At the base of the mountain (it's not that tall) are a few restaurants that provide pretty good food and a neat, outdoor atmosphere. There's also one attached to the entrance and hotel. But the ones on the way up from the parking lot are nicer, in many ways, because they are less touristy... of course, you can still buy souvenirs there too.