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Let loose on Tianjin's 'Kitchen Street'

By Stuart Beaton ( China Daily ) Updated: 2010-09-14 09:29:28

The smell of metal under duress pours out of the kitchen. I race in, scoop the frying pan off the heat and dash it into the sink - only to be told: "You ruined my eggs!"

The fact is they were already burnt beyond recognition, a victim of cheap technology.

Let loose on Tianjin's 'Kitchen Street'

If you want to cook, flimsy fry pans are no use to you.

You need something that's got some heft to it, a pan solid enough to leave dents if brought down swiftly on cooktops.

With my wife Ellen scorching the non-stick lining off a thin aluminum pan, it is time to look for something that better suits my needs.

After a look through the local supermarkets, all I can find is the run-of-the-mill cheap, lightweight pans, the sort that won't last a few months before the non-stick coating wears off.

The bigger department stores have some lovely cookware, but it only comes as sets or single pieces at prices which will force me to take out a second mortgage on our apartment.

There is no dearth of woks, but anyone who has tried to make crepes in a wok will tell you that you just need a very flat-bottomed pan.

So I put the word out to friends and students, to see if they can recommend somewhere that I can indulge my passion for pans at a pittance.

It takes a while, but eventually, one place keeps turning up in conversations, "Kitchen Street".

Unfortunately, no one has a clue as to where it is.

Maps are consulted, phone calls made, and innocent passers-by questioned as to where it might be.

Eventually, someone who must have shaken down a restaurateur for the details, hands me a piece of paper with the address on it.

Bundling Ellen into a taxi, we are off ...

Off to a rather deserted looking part of Tianjin, which certainly does not look like it would be home to what has been described as "somewhere you can set up a whole kitchen from". There is just nothing there.

Heartbroken, I turn to cross the road and catch a taxi back to work.

Just then a coppery gleam catches my eye. There, through a window long dimmed by dust, is the outline of a frying pan.

"Kitchen Street" is, after all, real, and we have found it.

Let loose on Tianjin's 'Kitchen Street'

To call Tianjin's "Kitchen Street" a street is a bit of a misnomer. It is a long covered walkway within a building, along which are arranged shops that cover all areas of the food-preparation and service industry.

It has everything - from a concrete-mixer sized dough machine to make enough bread to feed a small army, to crockery and glassware to furnish an entire restaurant.

Another shop sells waitress' outfits and chefs' jackets, and a strange sort of "Chocolate Box Soldier" uniform that I am told is popular with parking attendants.

Others sell industrial gas ranges and ovens, refrigerators and extractors - it is like being in a stainless steel food preparation heaven.

Toward the middle of the alley, I find the store I have been looking for - piled high with gleaming implements of the kitchen trade. After a little negotiation, I am the proud owner of a new, very heavy pan.

Then I am dragged away by Ellen, before I can spend any more money on chefs' toys!

 

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