A Sichuan Anniversary

There is no better way to celebrate four years of happiness than by doing what we love; discovering delishious foods!

This time, we took an adventure with  the Atlanta Culinary Tours and explored the art of Sichuan food. This type of food is so interesting, and it is like nothing I have ever experienced before. Sichuan is a province in China, and its food is famoulsy known for málà (麻辣), the numbing and spicy sensation created by a combination of Sichuan peppercorns and chilis.

This 3 hour tour took place in China Town, near Buford Hwy. As soon as we arrived to China Town, it was obvious who was part of the tour: a bunch of white people standing outside intimidated by the true ethincity of this place. Well, we too were intimidated, until we saw a Mexican man walk out (yes! even in "hole-in-the-wall", real Chinese spots can you find a Mexican doing something!).

Part 1: Chong Qing Hot Pot- This place is owned by a very intelligent man who came straight from the Sichuan region in China a couple of years back. His food is as authentic as it gets! We shared a family style dinner (the only way Chinese should be eaten) of 10 different dishes! Everything was so good that I wanted to take each plate and run away with it! My favorite was a pork belly dish and a a fried eggplant dish...yum. I was way too into the dishes and into the tour guides' commentaries that I forgot to take pictures :(

Part 2: Chinese version of the american dollar store-From fresh orchids to big and small figurines of typical Chinese figures...I wanted it all! The best part was when the store owner, Nicky, gave each and every one of us (16 ppl) a gift bag with goodies like candles and those things you hang on your window that are made out of colourful glass made for the sun to shine thru...wooo, yeah, it was great.

Part 3: Authentic Chinese Market- talk about cultural shock...frozen sea cucumbers, aaaall kinds of cookies imaginable, and yes RR's favorite dried anchovie chips (Sorry RR, didnt buy them bc I was falling behind on the tour). I could spend hours in that store.

Part 4: World Journal Bookstore- the extremely nice pople there hosted us for dessert and tea in their new tea room (only people from the community know about it). After eating a lot, then walking around, this was the perfect way of ending the tour. After the tour guides said their thank you's and goodbye's some of us stuck around to drink more of the delishious tea (my favorite was the cool jasmine tea). We got to talking to two other couples. One of them was a married couple who were there as part of their weekly date night...i guess to spark their relationship, I dont know. The other couple were pretty young (late 20s), who are also food lovers. The woman is a post doc student working on HIV and the man was a half-Korean, half-white guy who recommended his favorite Korean BBQ spots. I hope we can find them in another tour and make them our eating buddies (more people = more food to share = places to explore!).

This was by far the best anniversary! A million thank yous to my favorite person in the world. We are definitely doing their next tour: Cuban sandwhich tour at a farmer's market with live demonstration! Cant wait...