Mike's Chomping Cheesy Chinese Chow Challenge #1 - Jian bing

After sampling many of the Chinese street food snacks that Beijing has to offer, I have acquired an understanding of what I enjoy and what I should avoid. I quite often indulge in tasty market food or get a hankering for some fried nibbles when I suffer from hunger pangs. 

On the weekend, I woke up craving a jian bing (煎饼) which is a savoury egg pancake. This crepe-like delicacy can have a variety of fillings but usually contains spicy sauces, spring onion, coriander and a crispy cracker.

I have come to realise that this pancake makes a great breakfast, lunch or dinner. However, this time I wanted something more. Something groundbreaking. I wanted to push the boundaries of everything I had come to know and understand.

What if this time, I didn’t just accept the fillings I was given inside my delicious jian bing package? What if I wanted to improve on perfection? It was then that I made a drastic decision that was to change my eating habits forever. I was going to grate cheddar cheese onto my jian bing.

I have yet to discover a jian bing stall in Beijing  that offers cheese. It dawned on me that I could be uncovering something that would rock the very core of the street food world. Experimenting with cheese should not be taken lightly. I anxiously collected my jian bing from a nearby location and hastily returned to my apartment where my block of imported Irish cheddar awaited.

Usually, I eat the jian bing straight from the bag but this time I presented it carefully on a plate while I got the cheese grater. The burden of responsibility weighed heavily on my shoulders as I sprinkled a generous amount of cheese on top of the pancake.

What happened next can only be described as a breathtaking moment of bliss. The cheese began to melt slightly and as I munched on the jian bing, I felt that the cheddar was the yang to the spicy sauce’s yin.

As a culinary pioneer, I now feel that it is my duty to continue on this experimental quest. I cannot stop now that I know the treasures that lay within a cheesy jian bing. Many questions remain unanswered. What would happen if I added a smelly cheese to a stinky tofu (臭豆腐) concoction? What if I sprinkled some brie on a Chinese meat sandwich/肉夹馍 (ròu jīa mó)? What about if I paired meat kebabs/串儿 (chuanr) with some tasty cheese pieces?

I don’t give edam about what people may think of me, I understand this journey will be a grate one. But enough of the cheesy puns, I have a gouda amount of snacks to eat and perhaps some will not taste so pleasing. I must Caerphilly select my next experiment. You can expect more updates to the ‘Chomping Cheesy Chinese Chow Challenge’ soon. 

Tôi rất thích thức ăn nhẹ ở Trung Quốc. Bây giờ tôi muốn dùng thử một số thức ăn Trung Quốc và thêm một ít pho mát. Thức ăn nhẹ và pho mát sẽ ngon không ? Tôi đã ăn bánh đa mặn và pho mát. Nó khá là ngon!