干拌牛肉 Spicy Sliced Beef and Cilantro

Pinyin: gān bàn niú ròu

Sorry for the strangely colored picture, the dish looks much better in real life. This is one time where the beef in China isn't so bad. In general the beef dishes suffer from extremely poor quality beef that has been soaked in far too much tenderizer which I've complained about before.

This dish on the other hand contains decent quality meat that is fairly lean and not too chewy. It's a spicy appetizer that feels very fresh on the tongue. The spiciness real bites at your mouth, but the cilantro just makes it feel so nice and clean. The peanuts add a little crunchiness and manage to mask the spiciness.

This is really a great way to open up a meal. The explosive pepper flavors open up your eyes and really get you craving relief from what is to come, yet all that meat feels so good in the mouth you've got to keep going back for more.

沙茶牛肉 Tea Boiled Beef

Pinyin: shā chá niú ròu

Where's the beef? Well in China you shouldn't really be asking that question cause once you find it, you'll be disappointed. Chinese beef is overly saturated with tenderizer and usually comes from poor quality cattle stock and is usually a poor cut. I generally avoid it.

This dish of beef, mushrooms, broccoli and onions should have been avoided. Overall the taste was tolerable, the onions were the best part, the beef as expected was a severe disappointment. I believe the soup like broth was flavored with tea powder, which works well in drinks and some things, but tends to make food taste a bit bland and washed out in my opinion. I see little reason why someone might go back and order this dish, I certainly won't be.

干煸牛肉丝 Spicy Fried Beef Jerky

Pinyin: Gān Biān Niú Ròu Sī

I love beef jerky and I who doesn't love fried food, so put them together and it's a match made in heaven, a Chinese food heaven.

Judging by the spicy nature of this dish and the meat involved I'd have to say it's a Si Chuan dish. Oh yah, and the fact that I ordered it from a Si Chuan restaurant. Mind you though, it isn't that spicy, just enough to be flavorful.

Doesn't the meat look so nice and tender, LOL, it's not at all, it's a bit crunchy which is kind of a welcome change. It's not often that one has crunchy meat. So as a change from the norm and a pretty taste food regardless, this dish has become one of the ones I feel good returning back to.

葱姜百叶 Onion and Ginger Tripe

Pinyin: Cōng Jiāng Niú Bǎi Yè

How the times have changed. There was a time where I wouldn't touch cow stomach in any form. I laughed at just the prospect of someone eating tripe. These days however I know that cows have several stomachs and depending on the stomach the meat is a little different. The tripe used in this dish according to the Cook's Thesaurus is called Honeycomb tripe and comes from the second stomach of the cow.

So here are the facts of this dish. It's a cold one, an appetizer of sorts, that mixes the tripe with spring onions and ginger, lots and lots of ginger. It's decent enough, not my favorite, but decent nonetheless, and the ginger is extremely strong so you better be a fan.

芝麻牛肉 Fried Beef with Sesame Seeds

Pinyin: Zhī Ma Niú Ròu

Fried, battered, beef. Totally reminds me of chicken fingers but made of beef. They even gave us ketchup to dip them in which was totally weird. I've never been at a Chinese restaurant no matter how shoddy where they actually served us Chinese food with ketchup. I almost cracked up on the spot.

I'm not sure that this is a traditional sort of dish, I seriously doubt it in fact, but it is at least pretty American and if you are into fast food you'll undoubtedly have a taste for this.

The sesame seeds, BTW, are just hanging out there to break up the monotony of greasy brown fried batter.