A Day of Eating at Harbin's Daoli Market!

While I truly was glad to not spend another night at the Huasu/Shiju/Ji Feng/Yu Feng/Royal Maple Hotel, one advantage that it did have was a city center location. So, with my messenger bag around my shoulder and my carry-on bag rolling behind me, I set off to explore Harbin - and find a new hotel.

Harbin’s main thoroughfare is Central Street, known as the longest pedestrian street in Asia. It’s really quite pretty, with cobblestones and European/Russian buildings along its length.

At the south end of Central Street and one long block east, sits the Daoli Market (道里菜市场).

Inside was a bustling market of prepared foods, ingredients,…

…and snacks!

I started off with a bun, a 菜团子.

I think this one had pickled vegetables inside, if I remember correctly.

Then there was this stall with a line wrapped around it.

At the start of the line, there was a gentleman rolling out balls of dough.

Which he then fried, one by one.

You had a choice of shredded pork, or sliced pork in three different sizes.

Here is the worker assembling each wrap.

And here’s the finished wrap: crispy and fragrant from the wrapper being freshly fried!

There was a slick of a kind of paste like the hoisin sauce for Peking duck, and some different vegetables like spring onions. Very good!

After my breakfast, I went to the nearby Saint Sophia Cathedral, constructed in the early 1900s.

No longer a Russian Orthodox church, it’s now a performance and gallery space.

For lunch, I went back to Central Street to try for a table at Tatoc, one of the “Russian” restaurants in Harbin. It was more for the atmosphere, but the reviews for Tatoc and all of the other Russian or Western restaurants were pretty so-so. Anyway, they quoted a very long wait, so I decided against staying.

Another of the Russian restaurants is Modern, 马迭尔 (Madie’er)。

Here I got a coffee ice pop.

To be honest, it wasn’t that good. The flavor wasn’t very strong, and you can see the texture is very icy.

After striking out on Central Street, I went back to Daoli Market. My first spot was a stand that made 烤冷, literally “baked cold.” I’m not sure how it got its name, but this dish is very unique!

First there is a sheet of some kind of starch put on a griddle. Then an egg is cracked onto each one.

Then it’s flipped over, and a sauce is spread on top, and then white granulated sugar is sprinkled on top!

Then a sausage is placed on top, and cilantro sprinkled on too, and then another sheet is placed on top.

Then the cook uses the spatulas to cut and slice up the whole thing!

She sheets of starch become like noodles, and the sausage gets all cut up!

I couldn’t finish it all, but I took the leftovers with me.

For my final eating stop, I saw this one stand where you could actually sit down and eat!

I wouldn’t say it was particularly northeastern cuisine, but rather simple soft tofu (豆腐脑) and shaobing flaky pastry (烧饼). The owner was a good salesman, promoting their deal of tofu plus pastry for just 6 RMB (US 85 cents!!), or 9 RMB if a scoop of ground meat is added to the tofu (US$1.27).

I got the tofu with the ground meat, and it was seriously so good, so savory. I’d had many exotic things in the market today, but this might have been my favorite.