Shenzhen
Chang fen: A cheap, delicious and exotic breakfast in China.
This morning I felt like going down the street to my local laoban (The boss of an establishment in China, in this case the boss of a restaurant) and ordering a bit of Chang fen.
Chang fen (肠粉) is a very common breakfast in China. It is made with rice paste (Rice ground up in a machine and mixed with water) eggs, meat, and vegetables. The way they cook it is by steaming it in a multirack steamer. They crack an egg on a cooking tray, mix in the rice paste, spoon in some ground pork, a couple vegetables and send it in the steamer for a very short time.
When it comes out of the steamer, they pour on top a sauce which is a mixture of soy sauce, oil and water and garlic. When served, I recommend adding a dash of chinese chilis, lajiao (辣椒) to give it a little more kick and flavor. When I came in the restaurant with my girlfriend this morning, the laoban gave us 2 complimentary drinks of dou jiang, 豆浆, or hot soybean milk!
The soybean milk is probably the most common drink at breakfast for Chinese people. It can be served hot and cold, and is very refreshing either way.
When you bite into chang fen for the first time, it might seem a bit plain. It is a breakfast food that can be done very poorly, or very graciously! I have had terrible chang fen, and mind blowing chang fen. This restaurant is up there with high quality, but not quite the best. However, the cost is just amazing. One order of chang fen at most places in the city runs for about 4 ￥, or ~.64 USD! I got two eggs with mine, so mine was 5￥, about .80 cents. For the two of us it was only 9￥ total, ~$1.50! The soybean milk was complimentary but normally costs around 2￥, .32 cents.
To describe the taste, think of rice. The base of this dish is a rice paste, so think of rice but in sheets instead of rice grains. The texture is different, but the flavor is a bit plain and the same as eating white rice. This is why they have the sauce served with it to give it more flavor, and also adding lajiao or cilantro on top is a good way to bring out the flavor.
Overall I definitely recommend trying chang fen if you are in China, or even recommend it as a daily breakfast if you live here. It is cheap, delicious, and relatively healthy compared to most foods on the street. I’ll leave you with a recipe for two bean spicy beef chili, which is episode 5 on my cooking show (The lighting in this episode is not very good, I apologize for that, but in all episodes after the lighting issue is fixed 🙂
Enjoying pork noodles in Dafen, Shenzhen
It’s been a rainy week here in the city, though I have been enjoying it. Today is a Saturday in Shenzhen. Overloaded rush hour metros, muggy transitioning-summer weather and odd smog patterns.
Today I was in such a rush I went without a breakfast. I even went without a lunch. It was a busy, busy day in China but at some point I managed to get myself out of the house for a meal. I went no farther than 120 meters from my door for a very typical all-meal-dish I know of as “zhu za tang fen ” or pork noodles, 猪杂汤粉.
What you have in this dish could be a number of different kinds of Chinese noodles (rice, flour etc), boiled with pork meat (undoubtedly some bones for extra flavor) and lean meat at that.
Also included are green onions, possibly some cilantro, and of course on option a dash of lajiao! (Chinese hot sauce, 朱杂汤粉)
Of course, taking the first bite is always the best part. There is nothing better than a bowl of protein packed, spicy meaty noodles.
So let’s talk about what we are looking at here in terms of taste and value. The cost for each bowl of noodles (I had a friend with me) was 20￥ for the pair. Let me confirm on that ambiguous figure. It was 10￥ for 1 bowl. That is ~$1.70 a bowl. That is about ~$3.50 US for a meal for two people. Shockingly cheap, refreshingly tasty! So we know the value is great, what about the taste? I can tell you that it is excellent and you would have a VERY difficult time finding something for even 2 or 3 times the cost of here. What you get when you get a bit of everything is (Meaning noodle, meat, and broth) an incredibly cheap yet flavorful experience. Zhu mian is a very common dish in China, very affordable, and very delicious. I consider it relatively healthy because it’s not fatty pork meat, and the noodles are not fried and the nutrients coming from bone-broth are numerous. In fact, it’s so good you end up with a picture like this:
On a Saturday evening, I couldn’t be more satisfied to have a thrifty meal in China. Weekends are often times very tempting to go out and spend a lot of money on a fancy western meal, but if you are willing to stay in the Chinese cuisine, dinner can be very cheap.
I’ll close this evening’s post with a similar recipe to tonight’s dinner: zhu zha tang fen, pork noodles with cilantro and mushrooms, or 排骨蘑菇汤 which is a recipe on my YouTube channel.
Adventure and good eats await!
Hello there guys, and welcome to my blog! My name is Ian Young. I’m 26 years old and from America, but am currently living in the city of Shenzhen located in the province of Guangdong in China. I have been living in China for two years now and since I came here, my life has been transformed. I developed a keen interest for travelling and cooking, and in recent months have decided to take my skills and curiosity to the internet. I started my cooking show The Laowai Chef a few months ago now, and already have 12 episodes on youtube. You can see my channel at this link. Please check it out and subscribe!
Today is officially the first day of my life as a digital nomad. I will be posting lots of pictures and recipes of some of the delicious foods I cook and updating this blog regularly, and every day as well. I will also be doing lots of videos about China and other countries in Asia, and eventually the world. I have planned an upcoming trip to go to Thailand this July or August so I am currently making preparations and planning to film and document the entire journey.
That’s it for today, but I’d like to leave you with a picture (I apologize for the poor quality. I am soon getting a quality film camera so all camera and video related quality issues will be soon amended!) of some spicy pork burgers that I once made, which was the first episode of my cooking show The Laowai Chef, featuring myself (Ian Young). Have a great day!
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