Ciqikou street in Chongqing--gourmet food

China Tour 2009-12-18 3:33 Comment»

Gourmet food account for a considerable amount in Ciqikou street, Chongqing, southwest China. There is a variety of snacks almost in every two or three steps from the entrance to the exit in this street. They always bring the water to visitor’s mouth.

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food
The first sight at the entrance of the old street is Zhangfei beef shop. This shop name is shared by quite a few shops in the old street. I can not tell whether they are all belonging to the same owner.

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food
In each store you can see a people dressed like “Zhang Fei” (a famous general in the ancient Chinese history) to attract customers. Curiosity make many customers go into the store and look around. And after seeing, they would just take some speciality of Ba Shu (southwest China).

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food
Spice is never missing on the dining table of Chongqing people. Chongqing is especially famous for hot pot, spicy steamboat, and fish filets in hot chili oil. Now there are Chongqing restaurants in all the major cities in China. Though the flavor is not that authentic than that of local Chongqing, there are still quite popular.

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food

These peanuts and broad beans are also spicy and taste rather good.

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food

This kind of peanut wrapped in spice is actually not that hot, so I bought a few for my friends.

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food
Snacks spicy and hot like this are rarely seen in my hometown. People in Fujian province (southeast China) are afraid of spice. I learned to accept a little spice when I was in the army and affected by my comrades from Hubei, Hunan (both in central China) and Sichuan province (southwest China).

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food
Facing all the attractive food, my colleagues and I decided to eat along the way we tour around and try all the gourmet food in the street. But it turned out that we could no longer eat anything after a bowl of hot and sour rice noodles. The noodles looked quite ordinary, but they tasted amazing and I still can’t forget now.

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food
I did not search for any information about the Ciqikou street since I didn’t plan to come here. It was only after I came back that I learned the most popular snacks here are chicken giblets and boiled blood curd.

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food

I saw this signboard in the old street. Later I learned that here is the original birthplace of boiled blood curd.

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food

There are of course some food not spicy, so as to meet the needs of customers of various tastes.

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food

The sweet and grisp fried bough twist is also a special snack here. And there is sweet, salt, hemp, spicy flavors of them.

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food

There are many shops sell fried bough twists, but this one is the most popular. I wanted to buy some, but there was a long queue so I changed my idea to come back after I finished touring the street.

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food

But when I went back the queue was still quite long. I was about to leave when a warmhearted woman came and willing to help us to buy beforehand. We were surely glad to accept her help. Later I heard that there is a shop often employs people to queue up and make live atmosphere. I don’t know whether it refers to this shop. But we tasted some before buying, and they are really good.

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food
Next to the fried bough twist shop there is an Indian Roti Prata shop. Its business is also quite good. The boss employed an Indian man who can not only make authentic prata but also speak authentic Chongqing language.

Traveling,Ciqikou street in Chongqing gourmet food
When tourists take pictures of him, he will show some of his symbolic posts and he would not mind taking pictures with tourists. This could attract more customers to the shop.