In this final post about our holiday in China, I want to pay tribute to jianbing. A completely new food to us, jianbing is typically sold from a small stall at breakfast time (the vendor near our Shanghai apartment was clearly subletting his spot and all trace of his business vanished by 10am each day).
Jianbing is the crispy golden savoury breakfast of my dreams: a thin pancake with an egg cracked over it as it cooks; sprinkled with spring onions, ginger and garlic; folded once and spread with chilli paste; topped with a fried cracker and folded twice more; sliced in half and tossed in a bag. Watch the entire process skillfully accomplished in just 60 seconds in the video below.
It costs the equivalent of one or two Aussie dollars, and there's a couple of small variations available. Our vegan mates ordered egg-free ones, which this vendor happily made, though it clearly disrupted his muscle memory! We liked to pay extra and have a doughnut stick rolled in with the cracker (see top photo), and we noticed other people getting meat in theirs.
Though jianbing is clearly an oily sometimes-food with limited nutritional value, we strategically walked the dog by this stall every couple of days, eating all the jianbing we could handle before we lost access to it. It's an experience we don't expect to replicate in Melbourne.
Jianbing! Probably my favourite thing that I ate in Shanghai. <3
ReplyDeleteYes! For us, too.
DeleteOne of our fellow travellers pointed out a spot selling jianbing in the CBD but the first zomato review starts: "This is one of the worst food experience i ever had..." We're not very hopeful. :D