Guangzhou...home of Yum Cha (Li Wan Restaurant)

This visit to China is a particularly special one for Mr FBC and I. For me, it's an opportunity to join my family (there's 16 of us in total on this trip - including my aunt/uncle/cousins, plus some second cousins) to go back to the province and Chinese villages where my mum, dad and uncle spent their childhoood - on the island of Hainan (more on the 'island' and the 'village' to come in future posts!).  

As there were no direct flights to Hainan, my family decided to fly from Sydney to Hong Kong and then catch a train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou and stay for a 2 days before going to Hainan.

I was a bit sceptical about why we needed to stay in Guangzhou. I hadn't heard much about it and it frankly didn't interest me.  Some basic geography  to give some context - the city of Guangzhou is located in the Guangdong province on the southern end of the coast of China. It's pretty close to Hong Kong and is where the Cantonese dialect and cuisine comes from.
My disinterest was soon allayed after reading the following facts from the Lonely Planet guide that Mr FBC kindly downloaded for pre-departure reading:

"Eavesdrop on an average conservation in Guangdong and it always comes back to one thing: FOOD" ;

"The city boasts the largest number of restauarants per capita in China"; and

"Guangdong is home to the ever popular dim sum"

Food.... dim sum...I was sold! 'Dim Sum' also known as 'Yum Cha' to Sydney-siders is probably one of my favourite meals. Yum Cha literally means ' to drink tea' but in reality it means getting to taste lots of morsels of food and ensuring that you can never get food envy.

I'd like to say that we had Yum Cha for every meal... but alas... we only had Yum Cha twice AND in the same place (in our hotel). It's too hard organising 16 people. Fortunately... it was great. We were staying at the Garden Hotel and the yum cha restaurant, 'Li Wan Market', is located on level 2. 

 A very cute feature of the restauarant is that you get to eat your Yum Cha in a Chinese Sampan (aka a cantonese style 'boat' - check out the story on wikipedia). The restaurant has about 10 Chinese Sampans and my family were lucky enough to have yum cha in 3 of them.

Yum Cha in cute little Chinese Sampan Boats

Yum Cha in Guangzhou is not like Sydney - you don't get trolley ladies who cart the food around. Instead, you tick what you want on an order sheet (which was all in Chinese). Thank god my mum and dad knew how to read Chinese! I do like trolley ladies but I suppose your food is then fresher as it's cooked to order.

We ordered the relevant 'Yum Cha' staples for my family which included:

1. Har Gow - steamed prawn dumplings. These were spot on which plump prawns wrapped in yummy translucent dumpling skin. 

Har Gow

2. Sui Mai - steamed pork and prawn dumplings. These had juicy fillings held in a wonton wrapper.

Sui Mai

3. Fong Jao - chicken feet. Mr FBC is not a fan of these but I love them. The chicken feet are steamed in a soy and chilli sauce. It's very fatty but delicious. Get over your fear of 'eating feet' and give them a call.  There's an art form to eating chicken feet. You need to learn to suck the fat of the bones and subtely spit the bones out.

Chicken Feet wrapped in Tofu

4. Chueng Fun - rice noodle rolls drizzled with soy sauce and hot oil. These rolls are usually filled with either prawn, beef or pork. This place had rolls filled with what I would describe as deep fried dough sticks which were also filled with a prawn and mushroom filling.

Rice Noodle Rolls

Cross Section of my Rice Noodle Roll

5. Daan Tart - egg custard tarts. A Yum Cha meal with my family never feels right if you don't get your 'Daan Tarts'. The custard was hot and sweet and the pastry was super flaky. Yum, yum.

Egg Custard Tarts

6. A random bamboo basket of things -  Despite having my staples, I do like to try other things. This time we picked beef balls. These were made of steamed beef mince with corriander and shallots - very moist and flavoursome.

There were lots of things to see in Guangzhou so it was great to fill your stomach and start the day with delicious dumplings at yum cha.

Fresh Vegetables on Display

I assume this says 'Li Wan Market' Restaurant in Chinese

Li Wan Market Restaurant

Garden Hotel - Guangzhou

368 Huanshi Dong Lu, Guangzhou, China

http://www.gardenhotelguangzhou.com/