Return of the Food Obsession

[forestofglory]

Here's another update on my project to list all the food and drink in the drama. I started out with a preliminary list based on skimming, my memory and other people's rewatches. I'm now slowly working through a full rewatch. I've been doing 2-3 episodes a week and posting here with updates every couple of weeks. The master post has now been updated through episode 24. I’ve added about 15 new events between 19 and 24 inclusive. I am now over halfway through my rewatch!

Here are my notes and questions form episodes 19 to 24:

Can anyone read the sign in the background in episode 19 at 34:30? It looks like an ad for a local restaurant but I can’t quite make out the picture and I don’t read Mandarin.

I'm not including drinking vessels that don't get used in the write up but I'm enjoying some of the mugs. Dr Cheng has one with zebras one her desk.


One of the ways we can tell that the Miracle Dr is a jerk is that he pours tea just for himself.

The coffee in episode 24 sure is strange color. I say that’s because it was drugged but in that case shouldn’t the color be a tip off?

Comments

[trobadora]

The coffee in episode 24 seems to have milk already in it, which is apparently a thing?

[starriewolf]

The sign hanging on the lamp post to the left says in English "enjoy the city". The Chinese says "enjoy Dragon City".
The horizontal sign to the right of the screen is just a restaurant name.
The standing advertisement in the right bottom corner is just pictures of the menu, I don't really see any clear text?

Also as trobadora mentioned, the coffee colour looks pretty normal to me (although maybe a little dilute)?

[lunabee34]

I missed the zebra mug! Good catch.

[forestofglory]

Huh, I did not know that. Thanks for the link.

[forestofglory]

I was so busy staring at the ad for the local restaurant that I didn't even notice the other signs. Thanks for the translation!

I totally want to know what kind of food the local restaurant serves -- the top thing looks like some kind of custard with a red sauce but I can't really make out the bottom thing. I'll see if I can get a clearer screen shot latter.

I don't even drink coffee so I'm just going what I see in my office coffee maker. But I'll take you and Trobadora's word for it that its normal color some places.

[starriewolf]

The one on top looks to me like braised beancurd, I really can't tell what the bottom one is except it looks like a claypot dish (which, depending on which city Dragon City is supposed to be modelled after, can be many things).

I don't drink coffee either lol but I see it around? Frankly speaking it looks more like milk tea than milk coffee... even Japanese royal milk coffee (which has more milk than coffee) doesn't quite reach that colour. Unless the machine is out of coffee powder so there was an abundance of milk lmao

[forestofglory]

Thank you!


This is the best picture I can get of the sign. Its still pretty blurry though. I think that's text next to the pictures but its awfully fuzzy.

[starriewolf]

OK, top says 鲍鱼捞仔饭 I'm about 90% sure about that.
To quote Baidu: it's a high-class restaurant dish originating from Taiwan, where the abalone (鲍鱼) is first braised with hen, pork bone and ham, and then served with carrot and broccoli. So the white thing at the bottom is probably rice, and the red curved thing on top is a heavily-drenched-in-sauce abalone lmao. That explains the red sauce all around the bottom of the plate as well.
Here's a pic from Google:


Bottom says, as far as I can tell, 老(?)火汤.
老火汤 is a method of double-boiling soup and is all the rage right now for its health benefits. There are many, many different recipes, but anyway it's usually served as soup of the day. Just looking at the picture alone I think it's probably the most popular lotus root and pork recipe, like in the following image:


(I really can't figure out what the other word/2 words are, there's no word combination that makes sense. 老吉吃火汤? 老杷火汤? 老炖火汤? If it's the last one, then that's a really redundant way of saying it.)

[mekare]

This is so interesting, thanks for digging that up! I just recently reread a fic set in Japan where they go to a restaurant and an abalone is cooked live on their plates, which apparently is a thing that’s done.

[forestofglory]

Wow, this is so helpful thank you!

[(Anonymous)]

Could the bottom one be "老火靓汤"? If so, then we have a Cantonese restaurant here.

[tinny]

I see that everyone already identified the dish as abalone, but at the thought of "yellow custard with red sauce", I was immediately reminded of the thing we ate everywhere in China, namely silk tofu in sweet red sauce. Sadly, I forgot the Chinese name.

The tofu was most of the time vanilla-flavoured and really tasted like custard, and the sauce was just... sweet and didn't taste of anything. Could have been pomegranate or something, though.

I loved it because it was the *only* sweet dish we ever got. Sweet food is... not a thing in China. Once we'd had it once, we immediately asked for its name and then kept ordering it everywhere. :D

[forestofglory]

Thanks for sharing, I love stories like this!

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm, could it be 豆花 (https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%B1%86%E8%85%90%E8%8A%B1) or 豆腐脑 (https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%B1%86%E8%85%90%E8%84%91) or douhua (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douhua) that you're talking about?

[marycrawford]

Thank you SO MUCH, you are a hero of fandom and I love it. This is going to come in super handy for fic.

"One of the ways we can tell that the Miracle Dr is a jerk is that he pours tea just for himself." Ha, I thought so!

[forestofglory]

I'm so glad you find the helpful, and will use it for fic. (One of my goals of the project was to enable more food focused fic0