On the North Korean Border

Travelling in China for us isn’t only about visiting a place to see the sites or enjoy some attraction, sometimes our decision on where to stop is based solely on the food and that’s what bought us to Yanji. This small city of 700,000 people sits right on the border with North Korea, and we wanted to see how this proximity shapes the culture and food. It didn't disappoint, though the famous Instagrammable wall that draws flocks of people after dark turned out to be a brightly lit strip of shop fronts that, whilst interesting because the signs were in both chinese and korean, would hardly be a reason to come here. Needless to say, we weren't entirely sure what all the fuss is about.

The real find was at the base of that same instagrammable wall - the Service Building Yanji Cold Noodle Store. We worked our way through a spread of recommended dishes including lengmein (chewy buckwheat noodles served in a sour broth with meat, egg and ice), guobaorou (a deep fried sweet and sour battered pork dish) and and mingtaiyu (dried or perhaps salted pollack in a thick, savoury sauce). All of it was excellent, but the cold noodle dish was the real revelation. The combination of sour soup, chewy noodles and ice was unlike anything we'd tried before, in the best possible way.

We rounded off the evening at a bar called The World's Entrance, a relaxed, dimmly lit micro-brewery with over a dozen taps on offer. After talking (via wechat) with the enthusiastic and knowledgeable barman about the wide and baffling choice, an IPA was poured and a schisandra sour lambic, the latter made in-house and particularly interesting. The bartender was really passionate about what he was pouring. So glad we chose this little bar. All in all a great first night in Yanji.