Bread
I think of bread as being anywhere between San Fransisco sourdough to rye to Wonder white. Potato Bread, cottage, Italian sesame loaf, split top country, English muffins, bagels; hard or soft, biscuits; dropped or cut. Even the low carb options that are not really bread at all would be much appreciated in this place of rice and noodles.
Wait though, it’s not that bread doesn’t exist. There’s a lot of bread here. I just don’t recognize most of it. Bread here is usually sweet. I tried some Bimbo bread (Bimbo is based in South America)… I figured South Americans wouldn’t screw with bread. Sweet, almost a smell of sugar. Just doesn’t work with a ham sandwich, cheese and mayo.
Finally, I found a type of bread called “Morning Breakfast” that’s the closest thing to “bread” as I know it - a pretty standard white bread. It comes in mini packages of 6 slices for as much as twice that much of most other kinds. I pay the premium.
KFC
MWM, It’s pretty much the same. Colonel Harland Sanders secret recipe was not screwed with. However, I’ve not delved beyond the original recipe sandwiches. There’s lots on the menu that I don’t recognize, but I didn’t go to KFC because I was feeling adventurous. It was wholly a need for something familiar. Haven’t been to Cold Stone, DQ or Haagen Dazs yet.
Chinese Food
I can be quoted as saying, “a billion people can’t be wrong,” when people asked me how I would handle the food over here. Turns out that a lot of the billion go to Thai and Korean restaurants. Ultimately, there’s a lot of “normal” food here that is sometimes difficult to stomach because of what it is (not how it tastes), like pork blood noodles (usually served with mostly wheat noodles, but present for flavor). There’s another set of food that’s hard to take because the tastes are just hard to deal with, I blogged about some of these in “Adventures with Hairy Crab in China”. I had a street vendor flat bread, with Sesame seeds on it. It had the taste of eggs, and was warm - 1 yuan for a decent sized piece. I’m betting that the locals can pay even less for it, but I’m not about to attempt to bargain at my skill level not for something so inexpensive. I’ve had great Thai, Japanese and Korean BBQ here. I had some “O.K.” Chinese food, but as they say… nothing to write home about.