居民小巷

It's important to note that 农家乐，春熙路，文殊坊，宽窄巷子 are sort of the "tourist sites" of the city. Normally people wouldn't go there on a daily basis. Thus foods in these areas mean a lot more than pure"nutritional content to sustain human survival". Exotic foreign foods display fashion and satisfy people's curiosity for the outside. Highly expensive restaurants could be an indication of social status. However, the largest number of restaurants are the 苍蝇馆子[fly restaurant]. A key characteristic of 苍蝇馆子is 物美价廉[inexpensive good food]. To be a good 苍蝇馆子，it usually has to have some "banner dishes"[招牌菜] so that customers would come back.
These little food places spread all over the city, mainly in residential areas.[P.S. newly-built gentrified residential areas are different] They live on very low profit margin but provide the most significant service to the majority of the city residents on the regular basis. They often look shabby but often have the best food.
The photos above are from a typical lane in a residential area.There you can find little restaurants, fruit shops, vegetable shops, meat places, post office,photos developer,tofu places, fresh-made noodle shop, mini "supermarket", metal tools[五金] shop，even a walnut shop. Basically you can find everything you normally need here. For a lot of locals, this kind of streets are their daily life.





This “华兴街煎蛋面” has been selling its signature noodle with fried eggs' for decades. For all these years, it has never moved, changed its set-up[except the banner], or expanded the menu. Today, this is the most famous noodle place in Chengdu. Interestingly, it locates right behind 春熙路 and has not been developed[according to the boss, this street is already protected because of a couple very old restaurants]. For a couple days I kept going there eat noodles[which is very cheap]. The boss is rather talkative. He always stands at the door. I told him that I am from Nanjing and come to visit Chengdu. "I've heard of this noodle places many times and it is really good!!" I said in an admiring tone. His response was really funny," of course!! this is the only ONE authentic 华兴街煎蛋面！！all the others are fake!". He seemed very happy and proud of his work. When I asked why the noodle is so good, he laughed "of course we have our secrets". When I asked why they didn't open chains, he said,"it wouldn't taste as good if we get chains". then why not furnish the place a little bit? His response was a little surprise: our workers don't want to sacrifice their pay!" we have enough customers~~" Well, they do. they are always busy....
After all, they do have really cheap and REALLY delicious noodles~~~hahahaah
















This is also a decades-old noodle place. Their banner noodle is 怪味面-"weird flavor noodle". Different from the previous one, they do sell other flavored noodles. Here are four different flavors~~ Look, their tables and chairs look better~~This place has been furnished..
It's right across the street from a high school. There are a lot of students come for a quick lunch or dinner. With them the boss is especially nice. When the students finish the bowl, they can go have some extra noodles[with no seasoning] if they are still hungry.






This is 小谭豆花。It used to a little food stand that sells 豆花[very soft tofu]. Today they have adopted modern business techniques. It set up [only]a couple chains. It has a transparent kitchen. The hall was renovated in a traditional style. Look at the little ticket next to the bowl, this is a very old-fashioned method. Back to 1980s, when most restaurants were still national, customers had to pay first and get the food with the ticket. Here the ticket says" 馓子豆花“[soft tofu with the sticks looking stuff on top], from 1924.-woo~~





This is a lamb soup place. I put it here mainly because lamb soup is not a local Chengdu dish. The most famous 简阳羊肉汤is from a nearby city. In these little streets, "local dish" is not a common characteristic. As long as it tastes good and charges reasonably, it's a local 苍蝇馆子~
In fact, today in these streets we can find Yunnan rice noodle, authentic dumplings from the Northwest, not to say the specialties from other areas in the province.






Again, this is decades-old food place. It's specialty is 凉粉[a special transparent noodlish thing made of certain beans]. Like the soft tofu place, you also have to buy a ticket here. Another reason for it is this little food place is still National!! I have to be surprised. Before Deng changed the country's direction in 1980s, there were very few restaurants and almost all of them were national. Later more private restaurants with better service kicked out the national ones in the market. But this one still survives and prospers!! The cashier is an old lady--with a very interesting attitude. Different from the private ones that please the customers, here you don't get a smile, "what? --we are out of it!!". OK--all staff in this little place are elders. They keep talking to each while working, very chill. When I asked the old 叔叔 about the old-fashioned ticket, he took it seriously, "of course it's a good tradition!! we have to keep it! We can't change everything!'' I sense that in today's social atmosphere, "state-owned" companies could face a lot of pressure to "change".
But this place has not, they have not changed at all. They still have the good food, and the loyal customers.