As I mentioned a few posts ago, I’ve recently discovered the ‘little town’ next to the university where I teach, whose snack collection rivals that of Luding. This small area, full of restaurants, shops and, best of all, the aforementioned snacks, is a true cornucopia of delights. It has everything you could possibly want to eat; sweet things – for example, chocolate ice-cream…

…savory things – for example, steamed dumplings…

…and it also has several proprietors of what has become perhaps my favourite snack sold there, jian bing quo zi. It goes something like this: first, a spoonful of batter is dropped onto a hot-plate.

Next, the vendor uses a nifty little thingamajig to spread the mixture into a thin pancake.

Then, an egg is cracked onto the pancake...

..and this then too gets the spreading treatment.

The pancake is at this point flipped over…

…gets a generous brush of peanut sauce and chilli oil…

…is filled with lettuce, shredded potato, and mysterious-but-yummy crispy things…

…and is finally folded up and ready to eat.

I could eat eat these things till they came out my ears...but if I did that I’d miss out on eating all the other delicious things on offer at the little town, which really comes alive at night.

Once sun goes down, there are far more snack vendors out and about than in the daytime. Vendors offering steamed snacks…

…snacks on sticks…

…stretchy snacks…

…and another of my favourites, bread rolls stuffed with a choice of egg, beef, chicken or pork, fried on a hot-plate with shredded potato, green and red peppers, and spices.

I have to go to the Shuangliu campus every Tuesday evening for English Corner, an informal weekly gathering that gives students an opportunity to practice their oral English. The bus gets me in at about 6.45pm, leaving me just enough time to go eat at the little town before English Corner’s 7.30pm start. How convenient.