This is the favorite fried bun of Suzhou people in Guanqian Street-dumb fried bun. The plaque in front of the door is very simple, and the store is full of people, which is very popular. The golden crispy skin is covered with green broken leaves, so you must bite slowly, or the soup inside will be sprayed all over the floor at once. In fact, I like to eat its skin best, which is crisp and fragrant, but it is not much and greasy. Although it was very popular in the local area, when I went to Shanghai and ate another famous fried dumpling in Shanghai, I never missed the dumb fried dumpling again.
Lu, an old brand in Suzhou, went and found that it was originally a butcher shop, similar to Yueshengzhai in Tianjin, which thought it was selling snacks. This meat has no appetite at all. But it is very popular in the local area, and people who buy it line up.
This is another old Suzhou store, Caizhizhai candy store. Specializing in snacks such as candy, Suzhou-style dried tofu can also be bought here. Things in Suzhou are sweeter, and the pine nuts and zongzi candy in Caizhizhai and the braised dried bean curd are very popular. But only compared with other flavors of candy, they are actually not delicious. But the teahouse above Caizhizhai is not bad. You can listen to pingtan. Please listen to the next chapter for details. ..
Huang Tianyuan is a store specializing in pastry groups. All these cakes are traditional snacks with a long history. There are other sweets and local specialties. Many people will come here or bring some special sweets from Caizhizhai before they come back from their travels, but in my opinion, they are not as delicious as chocolate. The store was crowded and there was a long queue of cake buyers. Everyone buys so many cakes. I don't think the shelf life of this kind of thing will exceed one week. Tired of eating every day? I was surprised to buy so many. Because the cake dough is heavy, it seems that a pile of cakes can't get 100 yuan. If I take a closer look, it will make me sick ... how to eat if it is red? I don't want to eat for free, just watch. Early in the morning, Suzhou arrived. According to the research on the map yesterday, I took a taxi to Guanqian Street directly. It's still early, the street is still deserted, and several hotels are full. I found a tricycle driver to take me to the newly opened guest house nearby, which was very good. After taking a shower, wash all the dirty clothes with the washing machine in the shop and go out in a brand-new way.
There is a "Zhu Hongxing" branch at the door, which is very common. For Suzhou, I only know Humble Administrator's Garden, Xuanmiao Temple, Lu Jian Draft, Deyuelou and Zhu Hongxing. Lu mentioned Zhu Hongxing many times in The Gourmet, which became famous in 1980s. The first thing was described by Mr. Lu as Zhu Zizhi, a negative gourmet, who got up early every morning and hurried to Zhu Hongxing to eat noodle soup. At that time, gourmets were ridiculed and people were busy with the "four modernizations". You want to eat all day. But in the 1990s, I heard that Mr. Lu opened his own restaurant.
It takes three minutes to walk from the guest house to Humble Administrator's Garden and two minutes to Guanqian Street. Go to Guanqian Street first, and you will see spacious pedestrian streets and tall and tidy shops. Facing you is the old-school "Lu Gongjian" who specializes in selling meat. Going further inside, there are Suzhou Caizhizhai, Daoxiang Village, Huang Tianyuan Pastry Group Store, Deyuelou, Songhelou, Wang Si Restaurant, Wufangzhai, Zhu Hongxing, Lvyang Wonton and other old brands.
Zhu Hongxing is located at the crossroads, opposite Wufangzhai. Wufangzhai is famous for zongzi, and Zhu Hongxing is famous for noodles, but after going in for a walk, I found that the main products of the two companies are noodles and small cages. Zhu Hongxing's noodles with crab meat, braised pork noodles and eel paste noodles are famous brands, while Wufangzhai is known as "Maple Town Series Noodles", including noodles with meat and noodles with fried fish. Outside the store, it says "Crab Powder Cage is on the market!"
Of all the steamed stuffed buns I have eaten, the best is not Nanxiang, Zhiweiguan, Wang or Zhu Hongxing, but "Green Poplar Wonton". This is something I didn't even think of myself.
Walking in the food street of Guanqian Street, Zhu Hongxing attracted me the most, but I couldn't help it. This incident has stung my memory for more than ten years. Although I reminded myself to hold my horses and turn around first, I quickly got into Zhu Hongxing. The store is not big and there are not many people. I ordered a bowl of crab noodles and a steamed bread with oil. The woman who cooked noodles asked me, "Do you want to avoid green?" I didn't understand, and the waiter next to me explained, "No green means no flowers like onion, garlic and coriander."
Then "no green", the crab is full of flavor.
It will arrive soon. There is a big bowl of ordinary dried noodles with a mass of red and white crab powder on it. There are two ways to eat this bowl of crab noodles. One is to mix noodles with crab powder, which is similar to the way to eat noodles with dregs. The second is to carefully stir up the noodles and send them to the mouth together with the crab powder on the noodles. The difference is that the former soaked crab powder in noodle soup, but the taste was diluted. I do it in strict accordance with the second method, and my actions are quite satisfactory. I seem to see the noodle chef nod approvingly.
Take a bite, fresh! It's really fresh and special. Generally speaking, fresh noodles are in soup. This is fresh crab powder, which has everything. Using a crab to line a bowl of noodles is also a guest in the noodles. Think of Liang Shiqiu's noodles cooked with abalone for two sodas.
Oil-soaked steamed bread, cooked in a small oil pan, looks inconspicuous. Pick one up with chopsticks and send it to your mouth. The waitress next to her said, "Be careful!" "It's already late. First, the teeth are chopped into a layer of sweetness and crispness, and then the lips come into contact with a group of tenderness and freshness. All the taste systems are signaling "punctuality", and suddenly a delicious flood rushes across the tongue. Then, the elephant was burned-the soup in the soup bag was burned.
From Zhu Hongxing, I bought an ice cream at KFC, which made my voice cool. Suzhou is not a big city, but KFC and McDonald's seem to be everywhere. In Hangzhou, Italian pizzerias have sprung up like mushrooms after rain, and men and women have lined up in front of Pizza Hut.
I bought a packet of fried ginkgo in Daoxiang Village, got on a tricycle and went to Humble Administrator's Garden while eating. It's May, and the Humble Administrator's Garden is crowded with tourists. The garden is small and should have a quiet beauty, but nothing can be seen. At noon, I went to the lion forest not far away. This time, there are not many people, but it feels like an ordinary garden.
In the afternoon, I went back to Guanqian Street and went to Huang Tianyuan Cake Group to eat cakes. There are about six or seven kinds of colorful cakes, which are very beautiful. I bought an attempt, and almost none of them were delicious, far worse than Shen Dacheng. I have to go back to Wufangzhai and eat noodles in Fengzhen.
Fengqiao Town is a night stop near Fengqiao and the seat of Hanshan Temple. I haven't been to Hanshan Temple, and it is not known whether the noodles in Wufangzhai Fengzhen are authentic. But the bowl of braised pork and fried fish noodles I ordered is not as delicious as Zhu Hongxing or Zhiweiguan. There is a large piece of cold braised pork and a piece of fried grass carp on the noodles. There is a clear line between noodles and toppings. Fish don't want to get wet with noodles, and the fiery mind of noodles can't melt the cold of fish.
The old shops in Guanqian Street can be divided into two categories: one is Zhu Hongxing, Wufangzhai, Lvyang Wonton and Yuyuan snacks, which are mainly pasta, and the signs are steamed buns and noodles, and the prices are quite cheap. For example, the most expensive crab noodles are only 18 yuan, and buns are less than five yuan, which is cheap and good; The other is the famous shops such as Deyuelou, Songhelou and Wang Si Restaurant, which deal in all kinds of famous Soviet dishes, such as sweet and sour mandarin fish, beggar chicken and cherry meat, and the prices are almost expensive.
I only ate cherry meat once in Deyuelou and once in Suzhou. The price is acceptable, but the craft can only be said to be numb. But there are four-digit "famous dishes" on the front page of the menu. I won't eat, and I don't know who to prepare it for. I went in and came out of Songcrane Tower. A sweet and sour mandarin fish costs more than 100, and the price is very imaginative. Originally, I didn't plan to go to Wang Si restaurant, but when I saw the special offer of beggar chicken in 68 yuan, I wanted to compare it with Hangzhou Loulou and feel better.
The facade of Caizhizhai in Suzhou is more beautiful than that in Hangzhou, but the goods inside may be inferior. Hangzhou store has many fresh products produced that day, such as mung bean cakes and various cakes, while Suzhou store mainly includes all kinds of beautifully packaged finished products, such as Soviet-style jujube paste biscuits and pine nut candy. However, Suzhou has gold-plated dried tofu, which is fresh, sweet and delicious; There are also shrimp and squid, which taste special and are great for making wine and porridge. However, what surprised me most was the wine cake.
Every year from Qingming to mid-May, an electric baking pan will be placed in front of the pastry shop in Suzhou, specializing in selling seasonal snacks and wine cakes. The appearance of this cake is similar to that of moon cakes. There are two kinds of cakes: red bean paste and roses, and the noodles are made of sake, which can only be sold in this season because of the climate. When this kind of cake just came out of the pot, the streets were full of wine, the skin was soft and glutinous, and the filling was sweet and glutinous, which was intoxicating. Almost every food store in Guanqian Street sells fermented cakes. From the gourmet restaurant in Kansai to the land manuscript recommendation in Kanto, each copy is 80 cents. After tasting it all the way, Cai Zhizhai took the lead. Especially the rose stuffing, with white skin and red flesh, seems to penetrate into the skin layer by layer, which has a youthful meaning of affair. However, it is better to eat while it is hot than to store it. Once cooled, the lively rhythm will be completely lost, just like the coldness of a dissatisfied wife. Before going to Zhouzhuang, I bought ten fermented cakes and ten fresh meat moon cakes and enjoyed them on the way. As a result, my teeth are very smart and I just want to cooperate with the latter.
On the last day, when I came back from Canglang Pavilion, I wandered in the sunset of Guanqian Street. Flat stone roads, tall and quaint houses, gusu women eating snacks and leisurely old people smoking all present a relaxed and leisurely feeling in the backlight, similar to Wusu's gentle rhythm.
I sat down at Lvyang wonton restaurant and ordered a bowl of wonton with chicken soup and crab powder, and a cage of crab powder, which has been unpacked, totaling nine yuan. Wonton came first, very attractive, thick skin and big stuffing, clear soup, sprinkled with a few thin dried tofu. The soup is clear as water, without a trace of flour turbidity, but it is very fresh. The stuffing is soft and has a sauce flavor, which combines the styles of the north and the south. Then there are steamed buns, four in a cage, bigger than Nanxiang, smaller than Goubuli, tall and straight, with delicate skin and plump figure, which makes people willing to get close. Gather together for a wolf kiss, and the skin is like developing and bulging slightly; In addition to the freshness of crabs, there are thick soy sauce and sweet sugar in the stuffing, and the soup passes through the teeth and tongue, so-called lips and teeth remain fragrant.
After eating, I asked a woman who was making dumplings, and smiled and replied, "This is called tightly fermented dumplings. There is only a little hair on the dough, and there is crab oil and marinade in the stuffing to make jelly."
Tight fermentation, originally a slight fermentation, is between dough and hard flour. It is unobtrusive and informal, natural and seems to imply originality. This feeling is exactly our impression of Guanqian Street in Suzhou.