100 Chinese Food to Try Before You Die and other Food Lists

There's a lot of lists going around the food blogging world lately. I thought it started with the Omnivore's Hundred. But according to the House of Annie, this list was preceded by several others. Anyway, here are some of the list which I find interesting, and I might just get to try them:

The Omnivore's Hundred (of course!)

BBC's 50 Things to Eat Before You Die ( I figured maybe I can finish this list faster :)

American Omnivore's Hundred

100 Japanese Food to Try

The British 100 (Because the list really contains interesting things I've never heard of! Welsh Rarebit? Spotted Dick?! Stinking Bishops?)

100 Vietnamese Food to Try


Here are the 100 Chinese Foods to Try Before you Die. Courtesy of Diane from Appetite for China.

Some tweaks:

I changed the number 57 item from a Peruvian dish to this item that I think is essential to Chinese Cuisine as well. I removed egg rolls and added another item. :)

1. Almond Milk*
   
2. Ants Climbing A Tree (poetic, not literal, name) a hot and spicy dish made with ground beef and noodles, recipe here.)
   
3. Asian pear*
4. Baby bok choy*
5. Bai Jiu (Chinese distilled liquor)*
   
6. Beef brisket*
7. Beggar's Chicken
   
8. BingTang Hulu*(a street food, made with hawthorns on stick, dipped in sugar syrup)
   
9. Bitter melon*
10. Bubble tea*
11. Buddha's Delight
12. Cantonese roast duck*
13. Century egg or thousand-year egg*
14. Cha Siu (Cantonese roast pork) *
    
15. Char Kway Teow (flat noodles dish popular in Singapore and Malaysia)*
16. Chicken feet *
    
17. Chinese Sausage*
    
18. Chow mein *
    
19. Chrysanthemum tea*
20. Claypot rice*
21. Congee*
22. Conpoy* (dried scallops)
23. Crab rangoon *
    
24. Dan Dan noodles
25. Dragonfruit*
    
26. Dragon's Beard candy
27. Dried cuttlefish*
28. Drunken Chicken*
29. Dry Fried Green Beans*
30. Egg drop soup*
31. Egg tart, Cantonese*
32. Fresh bamboo shoots*
33. Fortune cookies* (these are not exactly Chinese...)
    
34. Fried milk
35. Fried rice*
36. Gai lan (Chinese broccoli)*
37. General Tso's Chicken
38. Ginseng*
    
39. Gobi Manchurian (Fried Cauliflower in Sweet sour Spicy Sauce)
40. Goji berries* (Chinese wolfberries)
41. Grass jelly*
42. Hainan chicken rice*
43. Hand-pulled noodles*
44. Har gau *(steamed shrimp dumplings in translucent wrappers)
45. Haw flakes*
46. Hibiscus tea
    
47. Hong Kong-style Milk Tea *
    
48. Hot and Sour Soup*
    
49. Hot Coca-Cola with Ginger*
50. Hot Pot*
51. Iron Goddess tea *(Tieguanyin)
52. Jellyfish*
53. Kosher Chinese food
    
54. Kung Pao Chicken
55. Lamb skewers (yangrou chua'r)
56. Lion's Head meatballs *
    
57. Snow Fungus*
    
58. Longan fruit*
59. Lychee*
60. Macaroni in soup with Spam*
61. Malatang
62. Mantou, * especially if fried and dipped in sweetened condensed milk
    
63. Mapo Tofu*
    
64. Mock meat*
65. Mooncake *(bonus points for the snow-skin variety)
66. Nor mai gai * (chicken and sticky rice in lotus leaf)
    
67. Pan Fried Jiao Zi *(Dumplings)
    
68. Peking Duck *
    
69. Pineapple Cake*
    
70. Prawn crackers*
71. Pu'er tea *
    
72. Rambutan*
    
73. Red bean in dessert form*
74. Red bayberry
75. Red cooked pork*
76. Roast pigeon*
77. Rose tea*
78. Roujiamo
79. Scallion pancake*
80. Shaved ice dessert*
81. Sesame chicken*
82. Sichuan pepper in any dish*
    
83. Sichuan Preserved Vegetable*
    
84. Silken tofu*
85. Soy milk, freshly made*
86. Steamed egg custard*
87. Stinky tofu*
88. Sugar cane juice*
    
89. Sweet and Sour Pork, chicken, or shrimp*
90. Taro *
    
91. Tea Eggs*
    
92. Tea-smoked duck*
    
93. Turnip Cake*
    
94. Twice Cooked Pork
    
95. Water chestnut cake (mati gau)
96. Wonton noodle soup*
97. Wood ear Fungus*
98. Xiaolongbao *(soup dumplings)
99. Yuanyang (half coffee, half tea, Hong Kong style)
100. Yunnan goat cheese

Some notes: I apologize for changing two items. I think this is a wonderful list. But the Chinese dishes encompasses a whole lot more - because of the many different regional cuisines. I would have loved to add some more even more exotic foods like:

1. Stewed Rabbits*
2. Shark's Fin Soup*
3. Abalone*
4. Abalone oysters*
5. Bird's Nest*
6. Dried oysters*
7. Shark Meat Soup*
8. Spicy Fried Eel*
9. Braised Turtles*
10. Angelica Sinensis *(Tong Gui) a Chinese herb that tonifies and invigorates the blood
11. Braised Sea Cucumber*
12. Seaweeds *(Hai Cai and Zi Cai) or laver
13. Four Herbs Soup*
14. LinZhi (ganoderma)*
15. Pig's Brain Omelet *
16. Iron bark Wine *
17. Fish Lips Soup*
18. Stir Fried Pig's Kidneys and Liver *


Ok, I better stop here or the list is going to get longer and longer... :)

I added an asterisk to the ones I have tried, or tasted. That does not mean I like them. Like pig's brain - yuck!!!

Why don't you try to check this list which items you have tried and see for yourself if you are a true Chinese foodie or not! :) I have added references to those items we might not be familiar with.

If there are still other items I might have overlooked, which you feel should be part of the list of 100 Chinese food, please let me know. :) Who knows, we might make it to Chinese 500!!! :)

Also, maybe we should start doing the Filipino 100 too!