Culinary Delights in China: Savory Foodies' Journey through Guangzhou and Chengdu

Hi my future group mates, let's explore the chinese food in mainland china! China is a huge country with different kinds of climates, topography and culture. Those characters bring so much raw material to Chinese cuisine. This trip will focus only on food, basically only a few sightseeing or not depending on the trip, I prepared two weeks for the whole trip. If you want sightseeing after the trip, I really recommend you get at least a month-long visa for your convenience. And for the departure schedule, if you want to book a day I didn't put on, let me know and I will see what I can arrange. Throughout history, humans have been trying to make food taste better for thousands of years, such as heating, fermentation, spices, cultivating improved animals and vegetables. But what is the key to flavor? What is the flavor that tells your brain “whoa, that is delicious!”, maybe you have your own answer, for me, the answer is Umami. I am not just saying MSG, you can find umami in animal material, especially in seafood and mushrooms. Umami also has its own specialty, with the cooking skill and different ingredients, it builded up a splendid culinary arts. So, when it comes to China, the climates and topography are various, the cultures are also different in different provinces, with thousands of years developed and evolved, the locals have explored their idiomatic cuisine. We are going to displore two typical cuisine cases in Guangzhou and Chengdu, one for the taste of the ingredients, the other for the area of spices. According to UNESCO, there are 5 City of Gastronomy in China, Chengdu is one of them, Shunde(the neighbor of Guangzhou, Guangzhou is the provincial capital) also is one of them. When it comes to Guangzhou, I am always surprised by how Guangzhou`s chefs keep the original flavor of the ingredients. Guangzhou is also the southern gate of China from thousand years ago, so it has a mix of different kinds of cooking skills and ingredients from all over the world. Personally, the cuisine in Guangzhou is my favorite. Chengdu is a typical basin, also the provincial capital of Sichuan. Sichuan food, maybe the most famous Chinese cuisine in the world, is known as spicy. It is very logical if you see the topography of the basin. The air is moist and hot, locals need spicy food to refresh themselves. But Sichuan cuisine is definitely not just spicy, for me, the key of Sichuan cuisine is spices and herbs. With thousand of years developing in cooking, Sichuan is not easy to find too many ingredients compared to Guangzhou, so the locals found out a way to make normal food tasting better by using spices and herbs. You will find it out by yourself on this trip. After the day tour, I am planning to cook dinner for you once or twice during the whole trip. I used to be a chef. Don't worry, I will show you how Chinese families cook. But it depends on how you like it. If you guys want to eat outside, we can cancel the plan. And for sure we are not going to eat all the local food in these two weeks, unless you really like it. We can try other cuisines from different parts of China, maybe from different countries once or twice if you want. This trip will focus only on food, not sightseeing. I prepared two weeks for the whole trip, if you want sightseeing, I really recommend you get a month visa for your convenience. And please be noticed our foodies tour was filled with meat. So if you are vegetarian, I don't recommend this trip. This trip is going to be my very first group, so I put a special deal on it. Don't hesitate to let me know if you want to join me on the trip. Our plan is one week in Guangzhou, one week in Chengdu, and will be dismissed on the last in Chengdu.please arrange your future plan after the trip in advance. And I know it is complicated to travel to mainland China,here are some kind reminders, 1. Normally you need a visa to mainland China for Europeans. 2. If you don`t speak any Chinese, it will be very difficult to travel by yourself, this is for the people who want to travel alone after our trip. 3. You cannot connect to Google, Whatsapp, Ins, Facebook, Uber, and other popular international websites or Apps in China, unless you use VPN to connect to the internet. I can buy a VPN for you for the whole trip, it takes 10€, but i recommend you prepare it by yourself before your arrival. 4. For non-Chinese, it is also complicated to register a phone number, considering you might need to use the internet everywhere by using your mobile phone, i can also help to rent you a phone number which can be used in china. 5. In china, basically we pay everything by Alipay and Wechat pay, but it is also complicated to non-chinese travelers, i highly recommend you prepare some cash before your arrival. You are not going to stay with me 24 hours after all. 6.The fee is not included in accommodation and flight from Guangzhou to Chengdu, we will fight to Chengdu together on the seventh day, maybe earlier or later. If our group ≤5 people, I will rent a car throughout the whole trip, for sure without extra charge, and try my best to make everything as easy as possible for you. And even through i want to bring as much as possible about the cuisine in China to you, but 2 weeks is too short for it, I can only say the trip might help to start the cuisine journey of china, it is more like 0%-1%, it you really enjoy it, stay in china and find it more. Don`t hesitate to book a place, let me know if you need any details about the trip.