Earlier this spring, when the word “Coronavirus” was steadily advancing across the front page of every major German newspaper, a subset of the population reacted with the same senseless xenophobia as my home country. Despite the fact that the initial cases of the virus came from skiers at Austrian resorts, racist outbursts against anyone of Chinese or East Asian descent in Germany jumped up sharply. Upon reopening in May, a chef in Düsseldorf posted on Facebook "We start on Friday, but only with our bistro. No Chinese wanted!!!"
And then there were the snide remarks, the jokes about Wuhan’s “bat soup.” Business at Chinese restaurants took a nosedive, just as it did in New York, even though the average Chinese restaurateur in Berlin has probably never set foot in Wuhan. Beneath it all was a poorly concealed ugliness, an implicit othering that has long existed in the way we talk about Chinese food. Other more knowledgeable writers have been communicating this to the world for years. I would strongly suggest reading Clarissa Wei’s piece The Struggles of Writing About Chinese Food as a Chinese Person.
Although I have no real personal claim to the city, I was fortunate enough to live in Wuhan for a year and it is a place I longed to revisit ever since. When I worked as an English teacher there a decade ago, Wuhan was still very much a Second Tier Chinese city in the throes of growing pains. A subway had been promised, but was nowhere in sight, and the daily rhythms of life were a jarring contrast to the hyper-modern streets of Shanghai.
It was a strange, sometimes lonely period. My Mandarin allowed me to communicate at the level of a small child and even with a VPN, I had virtually no contact with my home country aside from emails. I was struck by the enormous kindness that so many people in Wuhan showed a clueless, bumbling Westerner. Complete strangers would haggle with cab drivers to ensure I paid a fair price, or would spend ages helping me find my way when lost.
Between teaching classes and studying the language, I had vast swathes of unoccupied time, during which I would mostly wander in search of food. Hubei cuisine is spectacular, a fiery, rustic cousin of Sichuanese doused in chile oil and tongue-tingling peppercorns with a flair entirely its own. For breakfast, there was re gan mian, the city’s signature dish of sesame-slicked, pickle-studded noodles, and dou pi, a favorite of Chairman Mao loaded with glutinous rice and meat over a tofu skin crust that caramelizes like Persian tahdig. I learned to communicate by returning to the same restaurants and vendors, who were patient enough to allow me to stumble through tones and ask too many questions.
Locals in Wuhan often asked me why I hadn’t gone to a more famous Chinese city, to Beijing or Chengdu or anywhere, really. I never had a good answer, since I hadn’t had much choice in the matter. Instead, I learned to divert the question to the things about Wuhan that I loved. I would talk about the punk bands and the fact that, to me, Wuhan is one of the greatest food cities on the planet. I still believe this to be true.
I’ve digressed. Back in February and March when I was feeling particularly helpless and angry, I went out of my way to spend as much of my dining budget as possible in Berlin’s Chinese restaurants. Part of this was because noodles with an abundance of chilies are my comfort food; part of this was a wave of homesickness. Unlike other cities where I have lived, Berlin has no Chinatown and no sizeable Chinese diaspora. Germany’s primary waves of immigration have included the Turkish and Vietnamese guest workers, as well as the more recent influx of Syrian refugees.
Still, the last few years have seen the welcome arrival of a few excellent regional Chinese spots. One of my favorites is Liu 成都味道, which sells Sichuan-style noodles and hot pot near Checkpoint Charlie. The space itself is unassuming, decorated with what I can only describe as a profusion of pandas in every corner. Despite the fact that Liu only serves lunch and that the surrounding area is dominated by mediocre chain restaurants, word-of-mouth has ensured that it’s perpetually packed.
Part of Liu’s popularity has to do with Hilda Hoy, a Canadian-Taiwanese journalist who gave a resounding endorsement on her blog in 2018. She said it best, so I’m going to quote her directly here:
“A moment of silence, please, because the opening of Liu 成都味道 marks a watershed for the city’s Chinese food scene. A watershed moment because Liu 成都味道 (“Chengdu Flavour”) is pretty much the first Chinese restaurant in Berlin whose menu caters unreservedly to Chinese eaters. Because Berlin has by now reached that tipping point where there are enough Chinese people around – students, immigrants, and tourists –to sustain a restaurant that is geared first and foremost to their tastes. As the lovely Chongqing-born server told me on my first visit: “We serve food as it would be served in China. We don’t adjust anything for the German palate.” “Finally!” was my response. Then I had my first bite of their Sichuan beef noodles, doused in enough vermilion chili oil and chopped cilantro to send the average German running fast in the opposite direction, and I swear the skies opened, tears of rapture ran down my cheeks, and the angels sang hallelujah.”
That’s not an exaggeration. Although the dishes are not as incendiary as the German press seems to think, they are uncompromising in their spice levels and fiercely addictive. On bad days, that hit of endorphins from the homemade chile oil is a godsend. My personal go-to dishes are the Shengjiao beef noodles, with a smattering of fresh chilies and cilantro, and the Sichuan Zhajiang noodles, with ground pork ragú. If you arrive early enough in the lunch rush, be sure to scoop up one of the limited orders of Tianshui noodles, fat, toothsome noodles served cold and rolled in-house.
As with a number of Berlin’s most interesting food ventures right now, Liu 成都味道 got its start as a grassroots operation. Linqian Liu, who hails from Chengdu, and her German husband, Bernard Sroka, simply began selling noodles via WeChat. When they built up enough of a following, they switched to brick-and-mortar.
Another standout Chinese restaurant to transcend pop-up status is Chungking Noodles. After moving from Shanghai to Berlin in 2010, Ash Lee launched her supper club Chi Fan. She started selling noodles at pop-ups and street food events like Bite Club, before going on to open a place on Reichenberger Straße in 2019. The focus is very much on the noodles here, which are made daily in-house and are easily one of the most delicious things to eat on a street increasingly cluttered with good restaurants. The succinct, but respectable selection of wines and proximity to a number of bars have made it wildly popular—good luck getting a table in under an hour here.
It’s often been said that food is a form of soft cultural diplomacy, a way of introducing a side of a country beyond the narratives in the press. I hope that someday, when borders are less impenetrable and air travel less perilous, more of us in the European Union and the United States have the chance to visit China, to see the country through a human lens. I hope one day to be able to return. Until then, these small reminders will have to do.
What I’m Reading
I knew Emily in Paris was hot trash from the moment I laid eyes on it, but like so many people, I watched it anyway. In Emily in Paris is a sinister study of the American Dream (VICE), Nathan Ma, an American in Berlin, breaks it down beautifully. “Which is to say that Emily In Paris is a vision of the American dream of expatriation: the lofty aspirations of proving oneself through hard work and determination. As the battleground of the US election draws closer, it’s hard to drown out the drones of ‘I’m leaving!’ from US citizens disenchanted by the failed promises of their country. But when it comes to the baggage of the American abroad, we expect others around us to help carry the weight.”
I’ll read just about anything Wesley Morris writes (have you read his ode to the romantic comedy yet?). When I was growing up, he was one of the film critics for The Boston Globe and therefore one of the first cultural journalists I followed. Now that he’s a big-shot Pulitzer Prize-winner, The New York Times gives him space to write all sorts of smart, funny, powerful pieces like My Mustache, My Self.
That New York’s Commercial Rents Are ‘Too Damn High’ (The New York Times) is not news, but that something could and should be done about them is. Tim Wu writes about why this form of artificial inflation happens (Eater has also covered some of this recently) and what concrete initiatives could be taken to slow the blight of empty storefronts.
Like many children of the 1980s, I’ve seen The Princess Bride more times than I can count. I’ve also read the book-within-a-book in which it is based, along with Cary Elwes’ dishy memoir. So the fact that almost all of the original cast got (virtually) back together recently felt like a small gift in the middle of a rough year. Rachel Syme spoke with Inigo Montoya in Mandy Patinkin Is Still Singing (The New Yorker) and their conversation is predictably great.