Breakfast and Snacks in Hangzhou

Hangzhou's style snack plays an important role in local cuisine and also one of the three great ingredients of the Heaven on Earth. The other two are the local pretty girls and the beautiful natural scenery. In the long history of this great tour city, it has developed its unique snack tradition. Different sorts of delicacies are to be eaten timely according to Hangzhou's distinctive seasons. After the Chinese New Year and at the beginning of spring, locals will eat "Spring Rolls", which are stuff of meat and vegetable pieces wrapped and rolled in wheat flour made "skin" ; small pork dumplings in soup, Eight-treasure coogee, aiqing dumplings (艾青团子) and so on. During the Dragon Boat Festival which is in memoriam of the death of patriot Qu Yuan, rice dumplings with preserved pork or red bean paste wrapped in pleaves should be eaten and in the summer heat locals will sample many sweet and mouth-watering cakes. West Lake Lotus Root Powder Soup is also popular. In Mid-autumn Festival, moon cake is a must. In winter glutinous rice dumplings and lard rose rice cakes can make you brave the cold and wet weather. 

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dumplings with soup	Spring  Rolls
Qingmingguo(aiqing dumplings)	eight treasures congee
fried southern steamed bun with stinky tofu	sesame seed cake stuffed with dried vegetable and pork

 

Hangzhou famous snack street is on Hefang Street (河坊街) near Wushan Square (吴山广场). It is clean and tidy. It has lots of variety for you to choose. The traditional snack "you zha gui" (油炸桧, now called 油条) has a legend that when Song Dynasty's famous general Yue Fei was persecuted and executed by wicked Qin Gui (秦桧) and his wife, the boss of a small shop that sold fried noodles and cakes saw Qin passed by the shop's door in his royal sedan everyday. He hated him so much. One day, he used wheat flour to knead into a shape of human figure which looked like Qin Gui, and put it into a cauldron of heat cooking oil. He shouted aloud : "You Zha Qin Gui (Oil Fried Qin Gui) !" Passers by asked him that what did he sell, he answered "You Zha Gui". So the Hangzhou's snack got its name. 

Xin Feng Snack Restaurant (新丰小吃) is a famous snack brand favorite by people from all social sectors in Hangzhou and foreign tourists. It has many branch restaurants in the city. The most loved delicacies are Special-tasted Big Dumpling and Shrimp and Pork Wontons in Soup. The shrimp wonton's husks are made from high quality and strong wheat flour, thus the flour skin is shiny and white. Fresh pork and river shrimps are added. The taste will be so refreshing and smooth. Xin Feng's sweet doughnut is a very good snack for an afternoon tea !

The not so hygienic breakfast vendors in Hangzhou are seldom seen. Nowadays commuters who are in a hurry to get to work will buy their breakfasts at stalls within a newly established system called "quality reassurance breakfast", which provides sorts of bread, milk, soy bean milk, yoghurt and so on. They taste quite good. Chinese traditional breakfast can still be found widely in licensed stalls or shops, which have pork dumplings, dumplings for vegetarians, rice congee and noodles with soy sauce and shallot pieces.