Dongbei stewed meal 东北炖饭. The experience is fun but the taste is a bit meh; it’s just throwing everything into a broth. (The things on the side are corn cookies.)

My favorite and maybe the best thing I ever ate in China: Huaiyang steamed fish with pork on the top (淮扬菜鱼), extremely tender and the sauce doesn’t dominate the taste of the fish.

Fresh hairy crabs and yellow catfish (昂刺鱼). Especially eating hairy crab is an art that I haven’t mastered yet.

Braised steak (红烧牛排) from a Zhejiang restaurant (although I don’t think it’s unique to Zhejiang cuisine). Also fantastic and you can use the sauce to pour over your rice.

These wontons from a restaurant in the old city of Nantong, from a 50 year old store without a logo. (More about that, here.)

And this herb, called 藿香. I think the English name is patchouli. The taste of the tea is leafy and smooth. They say this variant only grows in the area here (rural Nantong) and people say that if they bring a bottle of this tea to the fields, they’ll have energy to work all day.