南京新吃食

Compared to Chengdu, Nanjing does not have a very sophisticated food culture. Except the salt water duck[盐水鸭]，Nanjing barely has any local food that is well-known nationally. Thus in recent years Nanjing has welcomed foods from all over the country and the world with no prejudice.
It has been only a couple months since my last return to home, but to my great surprise many familiar names have entered to my hometown.

This is an authentic Xinjiang restaurant. Most workers here are from Xinjiang. Interestingly, the restaurant is set up in several Mongolian tents.
While my friend and I finish eating, the employees finally started their dinner. We've seen many times on TV that Xinjiang people are good at singing and dancing. Sure enough, here they started music and singing. As we were having fun watching, one of them came talk to us. They are mostly family and came all the way to Nanjing for business. Now they already have two chains in Nanjing and are doing very well.


This is the first donut place I've ever seen in Nanjing. It's in fact a local Nanjing company. It sells donuts with dozens of different flavors, such as chocolate, green tea, caramel, etc. It sells for around 5 yuan each. Besides, there are also tea, coffee, etc.






This is the first Indian food restaurant I've ever seen in Nanjing. It's opened by an Indian. In fact there are thousands of Indians in Nanjing, mostly students studying traditional medicine. I also found another Nepali an restaurant, opened by two local Nanjinger. They love traveling and have been to Indian and Nepal a couple times. Thus they decided to bring the Indian cuisine back home.






















Again, this is the first Italian hand-made icecream place I've ever seen in Nanjing. In its brochures, it distinguishes Gelato from icecream, and sorbet from Gelato.
Interestingly, it's not opened by an Italian investor but a Chinese company from Shanghai. Their mission is to enable Chinese people to taste the most authentic Italian icecream at home.






The first Papa John's Pizza in Nanjing. Before I've seen a couple of them in Shanghai. I haven't seen any of its chains in its home--the U.S. though...













This is the famous Sichuan snack. Now it's entered Nanjing's food market with a doubled price. Okay..















Similar to Chengdu's 文殊坊 and 宽窄巷子，熙南里is a newly-built commercial area that takes advantage of old-times Nanjing architecture. There are many Chinese food places.








On the left, 蜀牛香is a rather expensive restaurant that specializes in Sichuan food. On the right, it's in fact very much like Two brothers in Middlebury. On the little blackboard standing outside, it says: "Irish breakfast..."


夫子庙is another such a site. It's history is much longer. But this 民间艺术大观园is a new development. Inside there are many old-times entertainment.














糖画is one of such old-time snack. Basically it's just candy made of sugar. But it's hand-drawn with liquid caramel thus requires high skill. When I was little there used to be the 糖画师傅 carrying the 扁担 in little streets. Children always gather around them watching, which is really fun. It has disappeared for long but now back to the main stream. Now this candy dragon costs 20yuan, equivalent to 2 McDonald's' burgers, or a decent meal for one person in a little restaurant.