The premise of fasting has always baffled and intimidated me. Some people dread getting those ‘Congrats you’re 50!’ colonoscopies because of discomfort—I dread the fast the day before. Celebrity fasts and cleanses? Hunger strikes? I don’t think so. While part of me admires the willpower of people who successfully starve themselves out of religion or vanity, I’m just not cut out for such an ascetic world. If anyone ever wants to go on a satiation strike, I’m there.

So when Annetta and Tianqi decided that, because of the two huge meals looming in the PM, it would be best if we ate only a bit of fruit for breakfast, I naively thought that I could get on board. It was only five hours of being conscious without food—surely I and my comrades could subsist on one piece of fruit each. Our devotion would doubtless be rewarded.

We set out around 9:30 for 北京教育学院, the Beijing Institute of Education, where Annetta and I studied and Tianqi was my roommate in 2007.

Though all of the food shops had been converted into clothing stores (boo!), the street looked pretty much the same.

Nor had the campus changed too much. One of the dormitory shifus, who oversees the building and who goes in or out, was still working there. I don’t think he remembered me or Annetta, but he knew Tianqi well, since she stayed at CET for subsequent semesters.

I don’t know what I was expecting to feel, but like when I returned home in June, it was as though nothing had changed. And then a current student came into the office for laundry tokens and I just felt obsolete. Hey—no one ever told me nostalgia makes you feel old! No fair!

By then, it was time to start meandering to the subway for our lunch appointment. I’d only been awake for four hours, but my inner Gandhi had reached his breaking point. I was not going to make it the two hours until food would be in front of me. But I tried for the same self-control Annetta and Tianqi seemed to be exercising.

This overpass was not here two years ago. With a workforce as endless as China’s, you could probably build the world in three days, not seven, and then have a few extra days for overtime!

A man once flew a kite into my face here. Good memories.

At night this square gets really hoppin’, with people roller blading and doing all sorts of dances. Some middle-aged man once asked Annetta to dance with him. She did. She remains thoroughly embarrassed to this day.

On the other side of the square is Ito Yokado, a Japanese department store with a grocery in the basement. Annetta and I recalled that this is whence we bought the Greatest Candy in the World. Should we go in and see if they had it?

Another tenet of feizhu-ism: ask rhetorical food questions like, Should we try that? Do we have too much food? and then cackle wildly. Do people really ask those questions without irony?

Annetta poured handfuls of candy into the bag.

“Is that too much?”

[Cackle cackle cackle]

Tianqi decided that since we were already in the grocery store, it was a perfect opportunity to buy some fried meat cakes. I went for a bag of chestnuts, since they don’t sell them in Huzhou, and before you know it we were eating candy on a bridge.

Seems like all of our inner Gandhis failed. My kind of hunger strike: a strike against hunger. I’ll never go hungry again! My inner Scarlett O’Hara sort of over-powered my inner Gandhi, wouldn’t you say?

Tianqi then stopped at this conveniently-located snack window and buy a bag of baozi with the sweet dousha bean filling.

Right. Well done, us. At least our intentions were good.

The subway has improved in two years—the number and reach of subway lines has just exploded. And now, after announcing where the train is in Chinese, and American speaker (not a Chinese person speaking English) announces the stop and proceeds to mangle the Chinese name. I couldn’t stop laughing. Oh those laowai.

Another defining characteristic of the feizhu club is that we always seem to go on excursions with the females outnumbering the males roughly 3:1. Originally it was our classmate and friend Jason; in Shanghai, it was Brian. Many people we encountered in Shanghai couldn’t fathom that Brian was with a group of three girls and not one of them was his girlfriend. Inter-gender friendships? Those silly liberal laowai!

So where was our token male? Look no farther than Plate of Wander groupie and frequent commenter Joey.

Joey is my brother Isaac’s good friend. Joey spent the summer at an internship at Pepsi in the neighboring city Tianjin. We’d been emailing and agreed to meet up in Beijing before he returned to the States. Joey was beside himself to make an appearance on Plate of Wander. I liken it to being in an episode of your favorite TV show.

It may sound like I’m just flattering myself, but Joey actually told me that he was disappointed that Isaac made an appearance on the blog before he did. You can also see his comment in (Bei)Jing of Pigs Invasion Part II. QED.

Joey met up with us for lunch at the Indian restaurant Taj Pavillion, which is located right next to a KFC, I can understand calculus better than I can grasp why one would go to KFC when Taj Pavillion is right next door. I mean come on kids. This is your body:

This is your body on KFC:

Friends don’t let friends eat KFC.

Lunch was spicy and fabuous. Tianqi was enthusiastic about breaking the already-broken-but-nonetheless-agonizing fast.

We all shared this aloo chat—spicy, oniony, cold, yogurty potatoes. The Indian potato salad.

Chicken vindaloo.

The real standout at Taj Pavillion is the dessert, specifically the Matka Kulfi, or ‘home made ice cream made in a traditional iced mould with saffron flavoured milk & spices churned manually till creamy, then set in clay pots to maintain it’s texture.’

It doesn’t look like much, but it’s so creamy and rich it would make even Paula Deen blush. The owner told us a lot of customers don’t really like it because it doesn’t match up with their concept of ‘ice cream.’

After lunch we set out for Tiananmen Square because I wanted to see the new theater, which is nearby.

But first, must mug with Mao.

Tiananmen is always bustling with people. I had wanted to see if I could spot the plainclothes police, and then Annetta told me that last summer when she was working for the US Embassy, one of her jobs was to scout Tiananmen security and spot the plainclothes cops. I think this was one of them.

He probably ate KFC for lunch.

Most people call the new theater 大鸡蛋(da jidan), or big chicken egg. I don’t understand why.

The way in is not readily apparent, since it’s surrounded by a modern moat. We didn’t go in, but the way in is underground.

Tianqi is so infuriatingly photogenic. I could just take pictures of this gal all day long.

Tianqi wanted to go for a swim.

I totally would have joined her if I weren’t afraid of the brutal napping plainclothes police force. They’re a humorless bunch.

Pose with the laowai opportunities!

And so it goes.

We still had a little bit of time before dinner, so we headed over to Xidan to caffeinate and shop.

Most of the locals do their shopping at places like this, as opposed to Western-style malls. These markets are huge, multi-floor behemoths filled with endless stalls selling shoes, clothes, jewelry, and all sorts of useless knick-knacks. These places are always teeming with people and they’re usually hot, stuffy, and soul sucking. The quality of goods is poor, the bargaining is hard (especially for a foreigner), and shopping just doesn’t interest me that much anyway.

I found a stall to get my nails done and let the rest of get swallowed in the retail abyss. By the time we regrouped to head to dinner, it was pouring. After only a few minutes, the streets began swelling and overflowing with water. Another triumph for Chinese urban planning.

Luckily I managed to snag us a cab, because we had a very important 7 o’clock reservation to keep. I’ve previously extolled my love for Tibetan food—there just aren’t adequate adjectives to praise this cuisine. Once I left Beijing in 2007, I tried fruitlessly to re-live all that carb-y, meat-y, fried goodness. I found one ‘Tibetan’ restaurant in Boston. Disappointing. Supposedly the owners were from Tibet but it was so bland I really question that. I mean, look:

Yes, things in Tibet are fried. But these things look (and tasted) like fried was the main ingredient, not a cooking technique.

And what is this nonsense?

In my experience, real Tibetan meat usually comes in hunks, not shreds. I distinctly remember that the best thing on the plate was the steamed bread.

And finally, the sad, shriveled momos (dumplings):

You call those momos? Yo mama! I’ll show you momos!

These momos are a lot bigger than the photo would have you believe. They are, in fact, a bit smaller than a tennis ball, with thick chewy skins and at least a golf ball-sized hunk of salty fatty meat in the middle. These momos are not to be taken lightly.

And that’s why we headed to Makye Ame—because their food don’t mess around. The menu is a novella, but luckily we feizhus have memorized the plot, so we knew exactly what to get. The best thing—unquestionably the best—is what I deem the Tibetan pizza.

It’s a thick, doughy later of steamed bread topped with saucy meat, peppers, and onions. It has a deep flavor and is pretty much the epitome of culinary perfection. O that Tibetan cuisine had proliferated to every reach of society!

We also ordered some tsampa, the staple barley grain of Tibet that Annetta and I didn’t even see in our time in Lhasa:

The waitress tried to tell us that between the tampa and the momos, we had ordered too many bread-based items. Annetta proclaimed loudly, “You don’t get it, we’ll eat it all. We eat a lot.”

Tianqi recommended this salad.

And I was like, a bowl of raw vegetables at the Tibetan restaurant? Sister, where your feizhu at? But I should have had more faith in Tianqi, because the veggies were fresh and doused in a sweet and tangy dressing. Win!

We also got some curried potatoes, forgetting that here, they tend to be a little bland.

Then we tried a new dish, vegetables in tomato sauce topped with cheese:

It was like Western pizza sans crust with a sweeter tomato sauce.

We finished it. Take that, waitress!

Joey is a good eater and certainly holds his own, but his enthusiasm hasn’t quite reached feizhu threshold. He’s a perceptive lad, though: he realized that being a feizhu isn’t about being a glutton. Yes, we eat. A lot. The pictures tend to make it look like we eat more than we do (usually). Portions in China are generally smaller (i.e. normal), and when you share with everyone, intake is spread around.

More importantly, though being a feizhu is about eating a lot, it’s about eating a lot of good food and appreciating it. We don’t go out and eat a ton of crap, like, say, KFC. We would rather eat nothing. Instead it’s about enjoying good food, unique food, basking in the glory of it’s flavors, it’s varieties and it’s ability to bond all of us together in a common love of eating good food.

Nor do we eat like this all time. In Huzhou, my diet consists of fruits, vegetables, eggs, and tofu, plus a morning bowl of oatmeal. The same can be said for Annetta, who also happens to be training for a marathon. She says the best thing about training for a marathon is that she can literally eat anything she wants all the time.

Hmm, maybe it’s about time Plate of Wander starts training for a marathon…

Tags: beijing, feizhus, KFC, travel