Village in the Mountains

Cuandixia is a small village in the mountains. This is all that I knew before arriving, but it was enough for me to want to check it out. When we arrived I found it just as described. The village was made up of dirt roads and stone hallways that connected many small rooms. Everything, from the walls to the piles of dirt, to the random rusty water spouts seemed old and decayed, except for the signs, which were freshly painted and labeled the buildings as “inns”.

I walked though these outdoor hallways, poking my head into this doorway and that. If there was an empty table inside, it was a restaurant; if I saw a bed, it was an inn. We settled on an open air restaurant, basically a stone porch, on the side of a mountain, overlooking the rest of the village. We ordered almost everything on their list of items, including the local specialty, “fried leaves.” Looking around at the fallen foliage, I was a bit nervous at first, but the puffy, deep-fried pieces of green tasted mostly like fried puffs of air. I should have saved my apprehension for the “tomato and egg soup” which was literally nothing more than tomatoes and eggs cracked into boiling water. The chicken dish was deliciously salty and spicy, although the bowl of meat and bones did include the head and feet.

I enjoyed the rest of the food, even the other “soup”, which was squash water that held enough flavor for me to add some eggplant or bones from other dishes to make it drinkable. The owners even brought out two little complementary dishes, one that was pretty much salsa on a plate, except that the tomatoes and onions were fresh and diced large enough to pick up with chopsticks. The second was a pasta dish, served cold in something like tomato sauce, with the treat of real (canned) black olives and about 10 pieces of rigatoni pasta. (I realize that sounds sarcastic, and yes, the “pasta” was pretty clammy and chewy, but realizing that black olives can taste the same even on the side of a mountain was a wonderfully comforting discovery.)

By the end of the meal I was feeling full and satisfied, until I noticed the “sink” for the restaurant on my way out. By “sink”, I mean plastic bin of dirty water piled high with old, food-encrusted dishes. Uneasiness washed over me as I remembered ignoring the bit of water that had lingered in the bottom of my bowl at the beginning of the meal.

I haven’t been in China long enough for: the insane alcoholic concoction at the restaurant. At the “bar”, a small table with a few bottles of liquor, I spied a glass jar of liquor with many creatures fermenting inside. The unfortunate animals included: snakes, scorpions, and, I swear on my life, a flying squirrel. Bottoms up!