吃在春熙路[一]

Food on Chunxi Road

春熙路 is the downtown commercial center in Chengdu. It's comparable to the Time Square in New York. There are surely more shopping areas in the city. But 春熙路 is the NO.1
The name comes from Laozi 老子道德经， “众人熙熙，如登春台”,with the hope that on this street business will flourish, customers crowd.

Now 春熙路 has expanded to a huge area with multiple streets. I mainly looked at food places[vary from restaurants to little stands] in the most central area. A lot of it is finger food since most people come here for shopping or just for fun. Rent in this area is understandably very high.

At the very center, there is a little square. Interestingly, Haagen Dazs somehow gets the prime spot. It came to the Chinese market relatively recent. I actually haven't been a Haagen Daza in the U.S. nor Europe so I can't tell the difference. Here it sells mainly ice cream and its derivatives, by which I mean ice cream cakes, ice cream moon cakes,etc. It usually has less people than KFC, McDonald's or even Starbucks, mainly because it charges incredibly more than the other two. According to their brochure, they now have around 70 chains in China with 25 in Shanghai.

Bread Talk is a bakery. It's relatively new in China. But it expands rather quickly. In the last couple years, I've seen more and more of its chains in Shanghai, Nanjing, and now Chengdu. It sells backed goods and features self-service[kind of like a buffet]. Some of them seem very authentic, such as Croissant(可颂！可颂！is its Chinese name here, which is very funny), But most of them I would say are sinofied bread. It is very bright inside and smells incredibly good[butter!].
Price here is relatively reasonable, considering its location. A croissant costs 4 yuan.A raisin bread[its Chinese name 葡萄小枕literally means grape's little pillow] costs 6 yuan. Note in Starbucks, a comparable size of croissant, muffin or brownie could cost 15 to 20 yuan.
Who opened Bread talk? A westerner? Or a Chinese that has lived abroad? I carefully chatted with a worker[this method didn't work in all places] and got the answer--the boss is a Singaporean! AH---it makes sense...


Dico's 德克士，at first sight looks like another version of KFC or McDonald's. It has similar outlook and in fact does have burgers,drinks, fried chicken, etc. But Dico's also makes Chinese food in fast-food style, such as burgers made of rice[McDonald's once had this in China], rice with cooked chicken, egg soup, 照烧饭[grilled pork with rice, the name is Japanese], and Korean Kimchee rice. According to an employee, the boss is from Taiwan. Later I search on-line, it says Dico's originated from Texas and came to China in 1994. In 1996 a Taiwanese company[顶新集团，known for its instant noodle康师傅牛肉面] bought it and entered the chain-fast-food industry.


优汁良品，looks like a cold-milktea place from Taiwan[Note: in the last couple years cold milk-tea has been the fashion. It was first started by Taiwanese then many locals imitate]. The interesting thing is that it takes finger foods from all over. It has grilled meat and animal insides, which are very popular in Chengdu. It has hotdog; shrimp dumpling and fish balls from Hongkong;local corn and traditional 荷叶糯米鸡chicken with sticky rice wrapped with locus leaf. As for drinks, there are milk tea with all flavors, coffee, chocolate, black tea with lemon or honey, watermelon juice and lemon juice. I learned from an employee that the owner is in fact a Chengdu local[ this time they found me a little suspicious and it was kind of awkward..the next time I learned to be more careful with questions]. They adopted the western chain model and welcome individuals to join. I searched on-line and now they have chains in other provinces. Most people probably don't care where the food originates as long as it tastes good!:-)
The finger foods cost 2.5 to 3 each. Drinks cost 5 to 7 yuan. This is a practically the same price with other places in the area. Of course, grilled meat costs a lot less in other locations[like 1 yuan each]. But considering it's 春熙路，a very much gentrified area, this price is reasonable.