In our Jiangmen hotel, there was an “eating street” right on the second level of the hotel. Basically, it was a large restaurant but organized into several different storefronts that offered food from all the different regions of China. You can visit as many stalls as you want and everything is tabulated onto one bill. I ate here a couple of times while I was at Jiangmen and really enjoyed how this allowed us to sample several different restaurants/stalls in a single meal.

There were six of us one day for lunch so we decided to go to the eating street so we could sample a variety of different items. First up was a fried curry rice. It had an excellent curry flavour and was very tasty.

We had to sample some dim sum…after all, we were in Guangdong province, one of the birthplaces of dim sum! I found the siu mai (pork and shrimp dumplings) here to be ok but I’ve definitely had better in Vancouver.

The crab and seaweed dim sum looked pretty interesting so we gave that a try as well. This was actually so popular that I didn’t get a chance to try one myself. I’ll just have to assume it was quite tasty.

The braised pork with veggies went very well with rice. The oil had been rendered out of the pork so it wasn’t too oily.

The ja jiang mein was spicy and very tasty. The noodles were made fresh on the spot and you could really taste the difference.

The vegetables were served with preserved (i.e. 1000 year) egg. I really enjoyed this dish because the egg adds a different taste to the overall dish.

I expected the tan tan noodles to be the peanut sauce version that’s found in most Szechuan and Taiwanese restaurants in Vancouver. This version had no peanut sauce and had a clear soup base but was very spicy.

Now it was time for dessert. We all shared some almond pudding and some black sesame pudding. They were both very tasty but also very thick…meaning they were quite filling.

The glutinous rice with red bean is a popular dessert item for us when we go for dim sum.  The beans were left whole instead of ground up in a paste so it made for an interesting texture contrast against the gooey rice part.

We also had a thin pancake with red bean paste.  I enjoyed this quite a bit because it was nice and crispy …but not oily at all.

Summary:
Food: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Service: 2 out of 5 stars
Price: $ (I think all six of us ate for around $20 Cdn!)

We finally made it to Jiangmen, which is a medium-sized city about two hours by car away from Guangzhou in southern China. I had several relatives in Jiangmen, most of whom I’ve never met before so this part of the trip was pretty exciting for me and my family.

There was a nice restaurant in our hotel and we ate there for dinner one evening with my dad’s schoolmates. In China, it seemed pretty popular for people to reserve small private rooms when eating with a group of people taking up two or more tables. I guess this works out well for everyone because you can be as noisy as you want without disturbing anyone.

The first dish this evening was some vegetable soup with carrots and bok choy. My grandma actually likes to make this dish quite a bit…now I know where she got her inspiration from.

We also had a bunch of cold dishes. I didn’t try any of these because I was just recovering from a bout of food poisoning (from Shanghai). However, I was told they were quite tasty.

There was beef tripe…

…and chicken fingers. Parts of the bones were actually taken out, making the chicken very easy to eat.

My mom enjoyed these pickled cold cucumbers quite a bit.

Now onto the hot dishes. The free-range chicken was a pretty standard dish. It was nice and moist though from the soup that it came in.

The prawns were big but I found them to be undercooked, making the shells quite difficult to peel off.

I liked the light garlic flavour coming from these garlic chives with pork. The chives were nice and crunchy, which I always enjoy.

The roast pork and BBQ pork dish was very tasty. The roast pork was a bit on the fatty side but I think this was partly what made it so tasty. The skin was super crispy. I noticed that all the restaurants in Jiangmen served the roast pork with some sugar for dipping. I’ve never had roast pork like this before but it tasted really good.

By now, I was starting to get full so I didn’t try the puff tofu with lamb although it was very popular with the people sitting at my table.

The stewed beef with potatoes was another tasty-looking dish that I didn’t get a chance to try.

The steamed cod came with chives and ginger. It was simply made but pretty good.

I really liked these sweet dessert buns. They were filled with some sweet sugary poaste, sesame seeds, and peanuts.

One of my dad’s friends told me that this place was about average in terms of food but is always popular because of its nice surroundings and decor. I did like some of the more unusual dishes (such as the dessert buns) but did agree that some dishes could have been better.

Summary:
Food: 3/5
Service:4/5