Chinabites

Posted: May. 22, 2009

After an excellent experience with Dai cuisine at the Dai Bamboo House, I decided to try my luck with Dai food again the next day at a place I’d heard about called “Daizu Renjia”, or what I’ve artlessly translated into English as “Dai Folks Restaurant“.

“Dai Folks Restaurant” is located on a very busy street, “yuántōng xīlù” (圆通西路), that attracts large numbers of college students. An especially large number of students were out and about on the street during lunchtime, going in and out of Internet cafés, sitting down to meals, or just snacking at stalls by the side of the street.

I arrived at “Daizu Renjia” just as the lunch crowd was thinning out. I asked for the menu, and as the request was called back I heard one of the waitresses who was obviously not a native Mandarin speaker reverse the syllables in the Chinese word for menu. Her co-workers chuckled at her for doing so, but it all seemed to be in good fun.

It was a bright sunny day and I had been walking quite a ways outside, so I decided to cool off with two cold dishes for my late lunch. The first was a Chinese (not necessarily Dai) staple, cold cucumbers tossed in vinegar. These came to the table with an uncharacteristically large amount of hot chilies and chopped cilantro piled on top.

The second dish was a 舂 (chōng) style dish. Chōng is a mandarin word that I didn’t know, but since looking it up I’ve discovered it means “pounded”. There was a whole “pounded” section on the menu. I ordered a “pounded” lemon beef jerky. The beef was very dry and mixed with mint, chilies, and cilantro.

My original intention of going with cold dishes on a hot day to cool me off did not go off as intended. The spicy hot combination of the cucumbers and the chilies in the pounded beef were enough to get my eyes and nose watering, and I generally consider myself pretty spice-tolerant.

On balance there wasn’t much to the dishes other than extreme spiciness. The cucumbers were plentiful and cheap, but had nothing to distinguish themselves from any other home style Chinese restaurant. The service was just OK, they didn’t seem too interested in explaining the menu options to me. I might go back again at some point to explore a little more of the menu, but at first glance, this isn’t the Dai restaurant to go to in town if you only have a short time. So far, that title belongs to the Dai Bamboo House.