A list of restaurants

jonattonyeah I had to look this up based on the characters, because there are so many homonyms in the Chinese language (many ’huang’s and many ’cheng’s).

Huangcheng 皇城 is a village in Shanxi Province. The name actually means ‘Imperial City’ so it will have been an important capital of some fiefdom or warlord’s mini empire centuries ago probably. I expect it’s just where the owners are from.

The noodles look legit, if excessively spiced. Either you dumped a shit-ton of chilli oil in there yourself, or they serve them like that for SF hipster tastes. No-one from anywhere in Northern China is eating that amount of spice in their daily staples, although someone from Sichuan might.

If they are genuine Shanxi people (as opposed to third generation ABCs bastardising their grandparents’ recipes), G9 and B6 on their menu will be superb.

And ‘hand-cut’ will just mean (like pasta) hand-made on the day, leading to an irregular cut, as opposed to using a machine, or worse, packaged noodles.

Dave taking the fun out of chinese food since the day he set foot in beijing.

rhouses That would just make it ‘Chicken Chow’ which wouldn’t really make sense.

bosstrabs Either you dumped a shit-ton of chilli oil in there yourself, or they serve them like that for SF hipster tastes

It came like that. It honestly wasn’t that bad as there was a bunch of noodles below. Once mixed it up, it looked far more reasonable. And they seem genuine. Oakland’s Chinatown is not like SF’s. It’s very poor and not touristy at all. Some of the places are quite dodgy and not just for the health inspector. The building Huangcheng was originally in burned down and the fire inspector found a maze of underground tunnels connecting various buildings. Likely used for human/sex trafficking unfortunately.

And cheers for the recommendations and the info, Dave, I shall give them a go next time.. I’ve become resonably familiar with Shandong cuisine but trying to branch out a bit. The regional variations are all over the place and can be intimidating. Many business owners are wary of outsiders and often aren’t very helpful.

Ensarro for Ethiopian lunch today! All in!

jonattonyeah that looks like it’s been eaten a couple of times previously mate

jonattonyeah Is that a barf-bowl JTY?

Love Ethiopian you uncultured swine! Injera is a god-gift to mankind.

Dubman What’s the grey stuff down the middle

That’s the stuff Penguins regurgitate to their chicks after a day out fishing

All in.

Dubman

Yogurts to cut the heat.

Yes, it’s not the most aesthetically pleasing food, but the taste makes up for it. And you get to eat with your hands like an infant. Added bonus.

jonattonyeah
It does look well tasty. What’s the bread made out of. It does look rather grey

jonattonyeah

And you get to eat with your hands like an infant.

Polite of you to not say “like Ed”.

Dubman

It’s a very sour “bread” made from teff flour. It’s spongy and I’m going to guess fermented. Grab a handful and dive in. It’s typically on the bottom of the platter, as well as on the side, so it soaks up the spice-heavy, curry-like dishes.

In the US, refugees were grouped together. So Seattle has a large Somali populaiton; Atlanta has a large Sudanese population. Oakland and DC have large Ethiopian groups. Certainly thankful as the food is tremendous, if not always the prettiest.

jonattonyeah
I see. I would have thought it came with rice.

Dubman

None of the spots around here serve rice. Dunno. Maybe that region is too arid to grow it? I don’t have any idea.

jonattonyeah
It seems they don’t hardly eat rice in Ethiopia but do eat a lot of Teff instead.