I Have A Life.

It was almost lunch time when I reached Chinatown in Yokohama.

I first found a beverage store near a TV station. There was cooled sour plum soup(酸梅湯) which is a traditional Chinese beverage and I like it. However it is 380yens per one small cup, about HK$30. I can buy 5 to 6 glasses of soup with $30 in Hong Kong, so I walked away.

Then I saw Chinese traditional cake shops. I checked in those shop and found that they were selling mooncakes. I was impressed by the variety of choices in mooncakes. There were some creative mooncakes made of materials which I have never seen in Hong Kong. I also found five-nut moon(五仁月) which is one of my favourites but not popular in Hong Kong. However, the vaccum packaging of mooncake made me wonder the freshness of mooncake. Good mooncakes should be fresh and contain no preservative. Therefore, I didn't buy any although I was impressed.

Restaurants I found were mostly Sichuan style. I avoid Sichuan-style cooking because it is too spicy for me. Cantonese-style cooking in the town is 2 to 4 time of common restaurants in Hong Kong. However, I told meself that I would try "Wan Tan Noodle"(雲吞麵) with high price if I could find one selling it, but I found no shop selling it.

Eventually I had a type of Shan Xi noodle called 刀削麵 for lunch. Cooks make a big dough and then shave on the skin of dough to make long , wide but thin noodles. However, I could not find a Shan Xi noodle in Shan Xi style of cooking on menu. I ordered one in Sichuan style.

I found wan-tans in a renounced Ramen restaurant in Hakodate. I tried it although it costed me extra 200yens. It tasted not good at all. The skin is not tough and smooth enough although it is thin. Good skin for Wan Tan should be as thin as paper but as tough as noodle and as smooth as tofu. The restaurant also did not put enough shrimp meat in filling. I also couldn't find red vinegar which I love to take with wan-tans. Although there are photos of famous people all over the wall, Cantonese cooking is not their profession.