Orchid Scripture: Muslim Food from the Black Dragon River

When thinking of 黑龙江省 Heilongjiang Province, many will envision a vast land of ice and snow where taller Chinese coexist with fellow Russians.

When I think of Heilongjiang Province, I remember my time in Harbin (2001) and I remember good food and lively table conversations. Harbin had a unique restaurant rating system where a restaurant would display a certain number of red lanterns outside their door (these were relatively big lanterns...most restaurants had anywhere from2-5.) I never saw this in writing, but was told that the more lanterns out front, the better the restaurant. There were also a fair number of 清真 or Halal (Muslim-run restaurants where food/meat is prepared in the manner prescribed by Islamic law) restaurants and they were designated by having blue, rather than red lanterns.

Since I often crave a 东北 (northeastern, aka Heilongjiang) food fix, we checked Dianping for a highly rated place near us. What we found was a Muslim restaurant run by a family from 齐齐哈尔 (Qiqihaer), another respectable city in the Black Dragon River Province. Their speciality is grilled lamb of all kinds, but their regular dishes would be worthy of at least a couple of blue Harbin lanterns too. They did use their 清真/Halal status to trick us into paying an extra 1 kuai each for the specially saran-wrapped "sterile/clean" dishware. We were relatively new here the first time we ate there and hadn't realized that it's a racket run by many non-Muslim restaurants in Hangzhou too. We no longer fall for this trick.

Pre-mixed 东北拉皮儿 (Northeastern cold mung-bean noodles)

Mixed and ready to eat 东北拉皮儿 (which now looks more like a peanuty version of 家常凉菜）

The always welcome 拔丝苹果 (found it translated as apple in a hot toffee sauce). They also had the banana and yam versions.

土豆泥 Mashed potatoes? (A Dianping recommended dish)

Their much stronger (saltier) version of 京酱肉丝(sauteed shredded pork in a soy bean paste) with the dried tofu wrappers and in the background is an order of 酱茄子(eggplant with a similar soy-bean derived sauce)