I spent 18 days in Nanning, China. As in most subtropical climates, the local food is spicy.

First night Dvora and I headed for the famed night market.

The fresher, the better. Some of the delicacies on offer were still wiggling.

I’m not very adventurous at the best of times. And most visitors in China find the taste of the seasonings used here odd. This was the last time I ate street food.

Most of my meals were provided at the World Gymnastics Championships cafeteria. The self-serve dishes had names like:

Bone Soup with White Gourd (Rib, Soybean, Mushrooms)

Purple Sweat Potato

Braised Beef in Wine (Beef Knuckle Meat, Carrots, Wine, Onion, Celery, Flour, kitchup and Vanilla)

Hakka Braised Pork (Soybeans, Streaky Pork)

Stir Fried White Fungus with Macadamia Nut and Celery

Catering to palates from all over the world, most were quite bland. All were overcooked as many foreigners fear getting sick from the food in China.

I tried a bite of most everything. Except for stews. Who knows what actually in this?

Some offerings were interesting and colourful, thought I often could not identify what they were.

Sadly, I have to report that my very favourite cafeteria food was European white bread with New Zealand Anchor butter.

Watermelon and melon for desert as sweets in all of Asia are NOT to my liking.

After our first restaurant had a rat run between the tables, I ended up instead buying groceries at Wal-Mart (Coke Zero from Atlanta and Sultana biscuits from Singapore) and snacking in my room.

My go to meal in downtown Nanning was a delicious Chicken sandwich at … McDonalds.

Hopefully I’ll be a bit more adventurous in Vietnam.

more food photos