Time flies. It’s hard to believe it’s been five years since we serendipitously “found” Bryan’s ancestral home in an urban village in Xiamen. A LOT has happened in between. In fact, the reason we went back out to Xiamen again this time was to see Bryan’s granduncle. Granduncle Carl used to go back to Xiamen every year. The pandemic brought all that travel to a halt. In a blink of an eye, 5 years have passed and Granduncle Carl is 88 years old.
Recently Granduncle struggled with some health issues, and thus wasn’t sure if he could handle the long flight from the US (where he lives). However, he really, really wanted to go, this being perhaps his final trip. When we saw him last Christmas in the US, we promised that we would go if he made the long trip.
Amazing, through the Lord’s provision, Granduncle Carl’s health and strength improved, and he managed to make the long trip over to Xiamen. No matter what, we knew we had to prioritize this trip out to see him together with the extended family.
Stories
We visited the ancient Che family home a second time. This time, it was a younger relative, Cousin Ling (our generation) that took us out to the village to see the home. Though it had been 6 years since our last visit, the house pretty much looked unchanged. The teenage kid who lived there is now in his 20’s (and still lives there).
Ling grew up in the house, and he started to tell us stories about how many generations of relatives were crammed into that house at one time. Every single person wanted desperately to get out of that house soon as they could. As each family member made enough money to move out, they did. Until only one family remained.
Che Ancestral Home
Che Ancestral Home
This was indeed the trip where we heard stories. Loads of stories from relatives we’d never met before from Bryan’s dad’s side of the family. A long lost aunt who was given away when she was a baby. A certain neighbor who supposedly had a crush on one of Bryan’s aunts, 60 years ago. An uncle who changed his last name to Che since he lived in the house. How historical events pulled the family apart, and the miracles that led to them finding each other and reuniting after decades apart.
XIAMEN FOOD – FAMILY STYLE
We shared about the amazing feast our relatives cooked for us the last time we arrived. This time, five years later, it was like a reenactment of that meal. We learned that Granduncle’s FAVORITE dish is the Che family egg dumplings.
Che Egg Dumplings
These dumplings are a labor of love. First, each egg wrapper is cooked one at a time in a wok over a small flame. Second, the fillings consist of hand-chopped ground meat (“machine ground meat does not have the right texture”) as well as hand peeled and chopped fresh water chestnuts. Each dumpling is wrapped on the wok after the super thin egg wrapper is formed over low heat. We can’t even imagine how long it took to make the 20+ egg dumplings that were on the table. Bryan said “I ate at least 4 myself . . .”
Another memorable dish was the homemade oyster omelettes, Xiamen-style. I’m used to seeing pan fried versions, but the Che family in Xiamen deep fries them! They were delicious, and I ate several!
Xiamen Street Food Crawl
Throughout the first couple days of our trip, we had multiple large, family-style banquets when eating with the extended relatives. Most of these meals consisted of many different types of seafood. After all, Xiamen is an island, so seafood is king here.
On our last day, Cousin Ling told us “I want to take you on a Xiamen street food crawl. We’ll visit all the best places near the old home.” Cousin Ling grew up in that old house, so he knew the neighborhood well.
I was so excited! After 3 straight meals of seafood banquets, I was ready for a change of pace. Something simpler and more casual. Getting the super local street experience from a local sounded perfect!
First Stop: Fuzhou Style Fishball Soup + Taro Dumplings
These Fuzhou fish balls are made from scratch and filled with pork. The soup, a simple clear celery soup, is clean and flavorful. The fishballs are bouncy, with a good firm texture.
Taro dumplings (they call them “baos” 芋頭包) remind me of Taiwanese bawan in that the filling is pork, bamboo shoots, etc. but the outside is made with taro and sweet potato flour, instead of just potato flour. It was sooo delicious! What a unique dish. Everything is handmade from scratch, including the satay chili sauce.
Second Stop: Noodles + Soup
Similar to oyster thin noodles in Taiwan (蛤仔麵線), this version adds other ingredients that you can pick. Our version included at least oysters, baby shrimp, pork, pork blood cubes, and other ingredients, such as cilantro.
These Xiamen style “wontons” were filled with a type of shrimp/fish paste.
3rd Stop: Dry Tossed Sesame Noodles
拌面 “ban mian” involves freshly made noodles tossed with a mixture of sesame paste and Xiamen sweet hot chili sauce.
4th Stop: Lumpia / Popiah / Fresh Xiamen Style Spring Rolls
This place, Bashi Chunjuan (八市春卷) makes the best popiah / lumpiah / Xiamen style fresh spring rolls.
The fillings have “no less than 17 ingredients” including a number of different types of green vegetables, cabbage, carrots, crushed peanuts, sugar, and Xiamen chili sauce.
Last Stop: Where the Locals Eat (Offal + Local Catch)
This small local shop near the Che family ancestral home specializes in cooking from the literal catch of the day from the small fishing boats. The day we went, they had interesting choices, such as baby eels (!). The deep fried baby eels actually tasted pretty good! They were like shoestring fries but healthier and full of protein.
Not for the faint of heart, but this is what the eels looked like at the counter (!). They look much better once they are prepared.
Simply steamed with salt, these local “catch of the day” were flavorful without needing anything else. Yes, it’s the whole fish, so you better be comfortable dealing with fish bones!
The prices at this place are cheap, and part of the reason is that they focus more on offal. Here, we had stir fried duck intestines with chili and soy sauce.
This is stir fried pork cartilage with Chinese celery and chili. Again, they are taking advantage of cuts of meat that are sometimes just thrown out.
One of the most famous sea worm jelly places was also in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, they were closed by the time we were wrapping up our street food tour. Thankfully, we had an opportunity to enjoy some sea worm jellies at one of the family banquets the day before. Though it sounds gross, it’s actually quite tasty! These sea worms naturally give off a lot of collagen when they are cooked, so these gelatin blocks just naturally form! It has a clean seafood flavor, not unlike eating shellfish. In Chinese, they are called “earth bamboo jellies” (土筍凍 / tú sǔn dòng), so for a long time I thought I was eating something vegetarian!
Pedestrian-only happening food street near the old house
It was SUCH a fun food crawl. We also enjoyed getting to know Cousin Ling a little more (this was our first time ever meeting!). He shared stories with us about what it was like growing up in Xiamen.
Here’s a video I made about the street food crawl:
