delicious – meiadeleite.com

ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the best thing this side of nutella’s invention:

i wish blogs could convey the scent that emanates from this precious jar. it’s… indescribably mouth-watering. our friend isa showed it to us when we were staying with her, and in our excitement we almost forgot our manners and inhaled all of her precious stock! good lord, i could swear they lace it with crack…

speculoos are crunchy spiced (pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, cardamom and nutmeg) cookies from the netherlands and belgium. they taste a bit like crispier gingerbread cookies… but better! it’s hard to explain, the flavour is so characteristic – and in my mind irrevocably connected to afternoons writing my master thesis in the netherlands, with a cup of tea by my side.

the spread tastes like the cookies, and has an interesting story too:

In the area of Europe centered on Eeklo, Belgium, where the speculoos cookie originated, local workers had long known that a sandwich made in the morning with butter and speculoos cookies would develop a spread-like consistency by lunchtime.
In 2008, two competitors entered a contest on the Belgian television show, The Inventors (de Bedenkers), with a spread made from speculoos cookies— Els Scheppers, who reached the semi finals, and the team of chef Danny De Mayer and Dirk De Smet, who weren’t selected as finalists. Spreads made from crushed Speculoos cookies would subsequently go into production by three separate companies, and by the time they arrived in Belgian supermarkets, Speculoos spread caused a sensation, taking the “Benelux market by storm.”

it’s still hard to find in germany, but we’ve spotted it at kaiser’s and have been sharing it with all our friends ever since. seriously, give it a go if you can get it! :D

i bet you were all thinking i was going to talk about beijing duck… et non! i introduce you the donghuamen night market!

i believe we were lost or looking for something else when we stumbled on the donghuamen street market… but we were instantly converted, and came back every day at dinner. food is one of the (main) reasons we travel, and so it was impossible to resist the temptation!

here’s how the tested snacks ranked, according to the “yummy or meh” classification:

crunchy dry yellow thing: meh. quite tasteless, and hard to eat with the mini-sticks they gave us!

stewed meat on bread bun: yummy! this was excellent! perfectly spiced & stewed, with lots of fresh herbs, and lots of sauce from the stew.

squid: meh, not that good. the sauce they covered it on was a bit too sweet for our liking…

fried “banana” balls: yummy! but banana? these things tasted nothing like banana! a fluffy favourite nonetheless :)

meat on wrap: meh. not good.

strawberry/pineapple stick: yummy yummy yummy! those strawberries were gigantic and thus a little lacking in flavor, but the pineapple is sooo tasty… it more than makes up for the rest. you can also have these in other combos (just strawberries, strawberry/melon, strawberry/kiwi…).

meat kebab: yummy! although we didn’t quite get which kind of meat it was, but probably lamb. very tender.

there were also lots of strange things, like snakes, starfish, sea horses or crickets… they must be popular among foreigners, since all the vendors waved them at us… but i’m not that much of a fan.

donghuamen night market, beijing from ana campos on Vimeo.

that’s it! i would highly recommend this place if you want to taste a bit of everything, and i have to say my belly had absolutely no complaints (this being street food and all).

a little advice though: more than 20rmb is probably too much for anything here, so raise an eyebrow and be ready to speak out if they ask you for more than that. don’t be dumb.

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