Food is a key determinant of whether a city is related.
Before coming to Altay last year, Mr. Wu once told me more than once about the "bad words" of the ball soup in the canteen of the unit: the thin soup was scarce, the meaty soup was fatty, and the cold powder pieces cooked with the soup were light and tasteless... Later, as soon as he said that he had eaten ball soup for dinner, I knew: he must not have eaten enough! He has never been a picky eater, and his complaints about the ball soup are so big that I, who have never tasted it, can't help but wonder: What kind of bowl of ball soup can become the "dark dish" that Mr. Wu smells?
After arriving in Xinjiang, after eating two pilaf meals, the stomach and intestines have been overwhelmed, especially when I saw the muddy mutton fat at the bottom of the plate, greasy and greasy glued to the rice, I felt dizzy, looking at the Xinjiang uncles at the neighboring table, intently mixing the rice and meat, digging a spoonful full of chewing, immense enjoyment, I had to silently drink a sip of iced "kavas" to suppress the shock. Later, when I saw the large iron pot in front of the hotel, the pilaf piled up like a small mountain bag was soaked in light yellow mutton fat, and I wanted to run away.
Once, at the corner of the Russian pedestrian street not far from the residence, I saw a Uighur restaurant called "Kangfeng Garden", the decoration is mainly green and gold, clean and tidy, air conditioning and sufficient, so I hope to find a different taste here. The content on the menu is not very rich, but it is still a variety of pasta, pilaf, and when I want to give up, I suddenly see "ball soup". Curious, I ordered a small portion to see how difficult it was to swallow the ball soup, which mr. Wu had criticized.
A steaming bowl of ball soup was quickly served, although it was a small portion, but the portion was solid, and the soup was accompanied by two round "oil towers" (similar to oil rolls, soft in taste, with a faint oil fragrance, and the authentic oil towers were clearly layered after being broken). The clear beef soup floats with thin slices of apricot abalone mushrooms, the side of the bowl is like grape-sized meatballs, and it is also tumbling up and down with the hot soup that has not yet completely stopped boiling, under a few green spinach, red tomatoes and white tofu looming, finely chopped green onions swim around, and a few pieces of textured brine beef wrapped in a few pieces of crystal clear mung bean cold powder, slowly emerging from the bottom of the bowl.
Can't wait to drink a bite, the long-boiled soup emits the deliciousness of beef and pepper light spicy, rich and pure, there is no fishy atmosphere, beef balls just with chopsticks to clip up, has already felt its porcelain, perhaps good luck, catch up with the freshly fried balls, a bite down, the surface layer still retains the crisp precious taste, beef stuffing does not have a taste of soft and tender taste and add starch, so the meat is particularly tight, the tip of the tongue can feel the dry roughness of beef fiber, with a spoonful of fragrant soup, It immediately becomes warm and soft. The sourness and sweetness of the tomato make up for the blandness and tastelessness of the cold powder and the apricot abalone mushroom; the soft stickiness of the tofu, the fragrance of spinach, and the monotony and thickness of the salt taste are just right, such a bowl of "rigid and soft" ball soup completely subverted my initial impression of it, and I was almost brainwashed by Mr. Wu's "poisoned" fake ball soup, and missed such a simple and rich food.
Since then, I have fallen in love with the ball soup of "Kangfengyuan" and set a record for eating for a week without interruption. So later, after I ordered food, the waiter at the front desk habitually shouted to the back kitchen: "Small portions, no cold powder!" "I think I may be suffering from 'ball soup addiction', where all kinds of mundane ingredients come together and are stimulated by a spoonful of rich beef soup, which makes people always want to reminisce over and over again.
After a year, I walked the streets and alleys of the bustling and lively Urumqi, searching for the ball soup that I had in mind, and finally found a "Changji Ball Soup" in a dense row of shops on Anju North Road, so excited that I almost shed tears, excitedly rushed into the store to order a copy, as if it was a long-lost lover, at the moment of the imminent reunion, the expectation and anxiety in my heart were intertwined with each other, which was difficult to press! However, the moment the ball soup was served, the excited expression instantly froze on the face: in the small and shallow soup bowl, there were two spinach, a few petals of oyster mushrooms, and four or five dull balls floating on a thick and mushy noodle. Taste a mouthful of soup, can't help but frown: salt is heavy, the meat is thin, take a bite of the balls, obviously feel that the meat filling adds too much water, perhaps in order to make the taste Q bomb, and put in the starch, eat it a bit like the hot pot balls sold in the supermarket freezer. Spinach is even more astringent to the point where the tongue is straight, and I wanted to drink a mouthful of soup to dilute it, but the soup was also soaked with this oxalic taste; a few slices of beef were still soft and tender, but it was tasteless...
Disappointed.
Later, I tried several more, all unsatisfactory, in order to meet my "ball soup" plot, Mr. Wu specially took me to take a taxi to "Forty-Nine Ball Soup", Urumqi's famous ball soup chain store, but I don't know why, once the sea was shipwrecked as water, always feel that there is no soul in these soups, no longer like the old bowl of soup in Kangfeng Garden, can make people drink a rich and solid sense of belonging.