Trippin | Inner Mongolia

Inner Mongolia might be the mutton capital of the world. I ate a ton of mutton while I was there. A ton! Mongolian cooking in a lot different from Chinese cooking and I'm glad I got to try it all. I love Chinese food in the States. It was going to be my first time in China and I didn't want to burst my food bubble, so I was a little reluctant to go. (Thank G-d, I didn't read this article by David Sedaris before I went.) 

Most of the beefy-looking pictures are actually mutton. Hot pot is very popular. So, we went there my first night. I was shocked about eating mutton. I thought it was awful. Gag. But, by the end of the two weeks, I was slurping it down with the best of them. Although, I definitely won't buy or eat it at home. I was actually surprised to realize most of my favorite Japanese dishes are probably Chinese in origin - ramen, gyoza, shabu shabu, etc.

If you're in Inner Mongolia (or Mongolia) you're going to drink lots of salt-milk tea. It's exactly what it sounds like - salty milk tea. It basically taste like soup, but people drink it at times where a normal American would want a glass of ice water. And hot salty tea really doesn't hit the spot in those instances.

I liked the French Chicken flavored Lays. I wasn't so impressed by the Cucumber flavored ones. I thought they would be salty, but they were sweet. I was also surprised that cucumber is always cooked in China. I don't know if I had ever seen cooked cucumber in my life prior to this trip.

The cherries were amazing. Amazing. I don't speak any Chinese, so when I had to navigate Hohhot on my own, I just ate crap from the corner store or bread. However, I did forgo my fears of interaction for cherries. I would walk in the produce store every other day, the old guy would hand me a plastic bag, I would fill it with cherries and hand him a wad of money, he would take what he needed and give me back the rest. Did I mention that the cherries were amazing?

The cafeteria food at the University where I taught was definitely nothing to write home about.

Luckily, the University was very nice to me and fed me lots of traditional Mongolian meals along with traditional Mongolian song and dance. These beefy noodles were pretty good. I noticed quite a few dishes have vinegar in them. Hot and sour soup in China is actually pepper and vinegar. It was quite interesting.

Thinking about Chinese hygiene standards, I was a bit scared to eat street food. I didn't want to be a punk in front of the students, so I ate it. I didn't die. Everything looks like hotdogs, but they said it's all actually made of wheat.

Here are more beefy noodles. I ate lots of beefy noodles too. Yum, yum, yum.

I was very surprised to see anything made with corn, but had these corn pancakes at one restaurant. I'm sure the Aztecs would be happy to see their little agricultural innovation spread so far around the globe.

I'm not going to lie, I ate lots of American food too. For some reason, I would get really stressed out every few days from eating exclusively Chinese food. The first time, the students took me to KFC. That spicy crispy chicken sandwich is jammin'. They also took me to Pizza Hut too, which was delicious! Pizza Hut is fine dining in China. I would eat Pizza Hut weekly if they followed their Chinese restaurant model. It tastes a lot more fresh in China.

One day I was walking around by myself with the warning to only eat at Muslim restaurants because at least they have religious hygiene standards. I was too scared to go in anywhere, so I was just roaming for five hours and starving. I saw McDonald's and it was like reaching the Holy Land. I goobled down a Big Mac like nobody's business... and a baby pooped on the sidewalk right outside the window as I was eating, just like David Sedaris would have predicted.