These are a few of our favorite...foods!

Well, November is officially here, and along with it-- sweet potato madness! By sweet potato madness I mean that most street corners have standing barrels full of coals where people are cooking sweet potatoes all day long, and they are sold for the equivalent of about $.40. Too good to be true! Nothing like grabbing a potato on your way back to the apartment, getting back, cutting it open and sprinkling on a little brown sugar- ready to eat in 1 minute flat and DE-LIC-IOUS! You just don’t eat the outside ;) This amazing discovery got me thinking that you might be interested in hearing about some of our other new favorite foods here in East Asia...

1. Youzi: (pronounced “yo- zuh”)- a brother of grapefruit, only less sour and easier to eat! You peel off the thick outside and then peel the big sections (sometimes up to 7 inch long) and eat up- yum yum! No spoon necessary!
2. Salt and pepper pork strips: (this is a contribution from Dave- he said that the title basically says it all)
3. Pea snack: Think....cheetos... but made of peas? Tastes a lot better than it sounds, satisfies that salt-tooth and even has fiber and protein!
4. Xiao long bao: (pronounced “shaow long bow”) literally means “little dragon bag”- 8 dumplings in a bamboo basket, steamed...like a little pouch of soup. Are you ready to come visit yet?
5. Drinkable yogurt: most of the yogurt here (and there is a lot of yogurt here) is the drinkable kind. We each drink at least one every day (usually during class ;))
6. Milk tea: you may have had it in the States-- think even yummier, and cheaper! It is a tempting to drink it every day but we don’t; my favorite is strawberry, Dave’s is hamigua (“ha-me-gua”-in the honeydew melon family, very similar)
7. Hello Pizza: okay, so it’s pizza. Not too adventurous. But for the equivalent of $5 we can get two “personal pan” (really big enough for leftovers) pizzas delivered hot to our apartment! You can’t beat it- this is a date night favorite.
8. Dan (pronounced “Don”) Bing: okay...cooked on top of a flat round hot surface, some sort of batter is spread really thin, then an egg is cracked into it and spread around and cooked, kind of like a really big, thin omelet... and then they put a yummy fried... something in it, and some sauce, and cilantro, and something else. Ha ha! I have no idea how to describe it! You’ll just have to take our word for it, and get over here asap to try it yourself! :)