Da Yun Dumpling

Glass noodles with minced pork; cubed tofu with chilli.

I'M dipping into the recesses of my memory - and drafts - to bring you this post from a few weeks ago, at Qingdao.

Unfortunately Beijing has bridled my blogging enthusiasm as no computers can upload photos (no CD outlets or USB ports). Aaaagrh!
Nevertheless, I found these photos in the backlogs and am determined to trudge on.
Plus, this particular eatery was one of our favourites so it's nice that it won't be neglected.

Da Yun Dumpling was a lovely little find about two streets back from the waterfront at Qingdao's main beach.
Their specialty - of course - was dumplings, of which they had about 30 varieties, including such combinations as eggplant and pork, field mushroom and tofu, and spinnach and egg.
They also had a nice array of non-dumpling dishes, with an English menu as well. Oh yes, how we grew to love Da Yun Dumpling.

Homestyle beancurd with garlic, mushrooms and capsicum; pork and eggplant dumplings.

On our first visit we got a little excited and over-ordered, much to the amusement of the staff, I'm sure, as we left half of our food on the table and rolled out of the shop clutching our bellies.

The spinnach and egg dumplings were divine - a touch bland, perhaps, but delicate and moist and generously filled within a thin noodle casing. An interesting discovery was that Chinese serve the water used to steam the dumplings as an accompanying soup. It tasted much like the starchy water leftover from cooking pasta.

Imagine slurping on your cooking water while eating spaghetti. Hmmm, not the best but oddly enough it did the job.

Spinnach and egg dumplings.

Sheets of beancurd with chilli and green capsicum.

One of my favourites was the bean curd strips. Sheets of thin bean curd cut to resemble noodles, then stirfried with chillies and capsicum. The texture itself was intriguing; very dry but nice and light.

Return visits featured stir-fried tofu, glass noodles with mince pork, Sichuan-style chicken with cubed cucumber, carrots and peanuts. Which brings me to boiled peanuts in this country. As a starter it's quite common to get a plate of boiled peanuts - in their shells - and green beans which you pop open.

Boiled peanuts taste so unlike peanuts, I would almost call them a bean. They're served cold, straight from a bucket where they soak in some kind of juicy mixture, which tastes faintly of aniseed. The peanuts expand to become soft and a touch chewy - like an undercooked kidney bean; completely losing their crunch and nuttiness.

Very strange but addictive and lots of fun as the juice spurts everywhere when you crack the shells open. A nice way to waste an hour in the late afternoon, chomping on beany peanuts and drinking Tsingtao on tiny eatery stools down the "hutong" alleyways.

Sichuan-style chicken with cucumber, carrot and peanuts.