Let me tell you about one of my favorite dishes around here: It’s called “Hongshao Qiezi” – eggplant braised in soy sauce, or  you may also refer to it as “red-cooked eggplant”. You can order it in any of the restaurants around here, and it actually is quite a common dish. Usually, the eggplant is cooked together with tomatoes, some kind of onions and the sauce that gives it its special flavor. Combined with all the spices that Chinese cuisine is so famous for, this eggplant dish is quite a delicious affair, and very much liked among most of the foreigners around here!

I know we are pretty spoiled, getting our meals, usually three times a day, served buffet style. However, during the winter break, things change around here. Now we only get served two meals a day, brunch at 10 am, dinner at 5 pm. Brunch offers a rather typical selection of American breakfast items (they call it Western, though; but for me as a European, it’s not anything we would serve for a breakfast, lol): scrambled eggs, fried eggs, boiled eggs, bacon, sausages, fried potatoes, pancakes, french toast, blueberry omelet, and always a Chinese style porridge. On top of that we have toast, oatmeal, some sort of cereals, honey, yogurt, and jam. Did I ever mention I miss cheese? Well, anyways, this is nothing like the typical Chinese breakfast, but I hope to be able to show you more of that in the future! For now, I’m just saying: Bon Apetit!

It may not be a typical Chinese dish, but it certainly is one of the favorite meals in our foreign faculty dining hall for a lot of my colleagues: Chicken Parmesan. It’s one of the few times a week that our cafeteria is packed as everyone tries to get their share of Chicken Parmesan. I myself don’t care as much about the chicken, but I definitely go for the cheese that comes with it (though sometimes when I come to lunch too late the cheese might be gone already, as lots of people scrape it off the top of the chicken in an attempt to get as much of it as possible). Yes, cheese has become a treasured affair here, since it’s not part of any of the local cuisine and therefore isn’t readily available in the stores. It’s hard to come by and expensive when you purchase it, so yes – Chicken Parmesan Day is definitely “in” around here!