I am so happy I have found a wet market in Beijing! Somehow, FFV's* in supermarkets don't cut it for me. So when a neighbour (a fellow newcomer with similarly unconventional life experiences as me - originally from HK, married to American, have lived in US, then Suzhou/Shanghai & now Beijing) brought me to not one, but two wet markets on Wednesday, I was so happy! I found my leafy greens & fruits which don't look dehydrated/manhandled like the ones you find in Carrefour or Walmart (yes, they have a Walmart here). And prices were cheap too. I bought chicken legs/breast, pork ribs/loin, siew bak choy ,water cress, dou miao, ginger, apples, Chinese pear, watermelon, mandarin oranges (the mini ones which are intensely sweet - yum), mango & paid the princely sum of about 100 yuan** in total.
The northern Chinese don't eat a lot of leafy greens, for some reason. They mostly like gourds & beans & peppers in their food. Hence, one finds it difficult to find things like choi sum & kai lan in the supermarkets (local or otherwise). Well, you do see them occasionally in the aforementioned supermarkets, but most are wilted & not something I would use to cook.
Yay! Now I won't miss my Holland V vegetable ladies & Farrer market fruit man too much!
*fresh fruits & vegetables
**approx. SGD20 or US$14
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