Late Night Noshing
Finals have rolled around, and everyone here at Cornell (is mostly) studying. And writing. And studying, and writing, and finishing up projects, et al. This results in late nights, and with late nights, comes late night eats. I imagine typical students get something delivered from CampusFood.com, venture out to Collegetown Bagels, or go to the convenience stores out at Noyes or RPU, but I’m the type of college student that cooks more than she eats out, so whenever I get hungry, I usually eat some fruit I got at Wegman’s if I want something sweet, or I make ramen, mac & cheese, or a sandwich (usually grilled cheese or PB&J) if I want something savory.
In China, though, cooking was not an option. There aren’t any cooking areas in local student dorms, and the international students’ dorms have two hotplates and a large sink to call a kitchen. Yep, two hotplates. And a sink. If you’re in Beijing University and you want to consider cooking yourself because you’re craving spaghetti with a proper ratio of spaghetti sauce to spaghetti noodles, or, if you’re like my friend and want to make French onion soup, be sure to buy a pot made of metal. Out in a landfill located in the peripheries of Beijing, there may or may not be a beer can with a hole burnt on the bottom because the ceramic pot didn’t work for the aspiring cooks.
Anyway, I digress. Because the cooking facilities leave much to be desired, and more importantly, because eating out is so incredibly cheap on campus in China, it makes more sense to eat out. If you’re too lazy to venture off campus, you have 3 options at Beijing University:
1. The eateries located in the dining complex of the campus, right in front of the bathhouse and 学五食堂. Here, you can get hot vegetables and fishballs skewered and cooked in spicy broth (麻辣烫) for 0.5 kuai a skewer. Some people question the sanitation, but when I ate there, I thought it was delicious and walked away unscathed, save my tongue, which got burnt on the hot broth. If you want to opt out of the skewers, though, there’s always 烤地瓜, or roasted sweet potatoes, and the infamous (among CAPS majors) 鸡肉卷, or chicken wraps. 鸡肉卷 is basically a fried doughy pancake with a leaf of lettuce, miscellaneous soy-based sauces, and several pieces of fried chicken, harkening back to KFC back at home. The place that sells the 鸡肉卷 have other wraps, so knock yourself out. There’re also fruit stands inside the building, behind this strip of stands — reputedly the cheapest place to get fruit in the entire campus because it’s so hidden away from the others.
2. Outdoors convenience booth located across 面条食堂. There’s a larger convenience store called 物美, much closer to the foreign student dorms, but if you want to get away from your room for a brisk walk, go here, where snacks are slightly cheaper than the snacks at convenience stores. Here, you will also discover almost-frozen Oreos (when you’re out late at night in December), which I think have their own merits.
3. 3. If the former two locations don’t satisfy your taste buds, and you’re hankering for something more densely packed with carbohydrates/want to procrastinate 5 more minutes, then you’ll have to walk down the road to this 小铺子, located right next to , where there’re Chinese buns (包子) and sticky rice filled with savory proteins (粽子), along with standard convenience store fare and fruit.
This has been a very insightful read, thanks for sharing.
Beijing is on my list of places to visit in 2011.