Chi fan le ma?

When I first came to Beijing 10 years ago, I had no idea what a "donkey-roll-over" (ground yellow rice cake) was. The names "pease-yellow" (ground pease jelly) and "kidney bean roll" (ground kidney bean and red bean cake) also sounded so mysterious and tempting.

Today, I still find some dishes taste better when I know about the background and elaborate techniques involved in making them.

That might explain my liking for some dishes I had already tried. Clear cabbage soup at Sichuan Restaurant, for example, looked simple enough but was actually the result of using pieces of chicken breast to turn thick broth clear, discarding the chicken and then pouring hot soup on the cabbage to make it absorb more taste. There are plenty of other examples of dishes that are difficult to make but end up being worth the trouble.