Panda Snacks

Our next stop at the festival was the China kiosk, located right by the China Pavilion. Both of us had eaten at the restaurants in the China Pavilion before, although it had been decades since A had eaten there, and were hoping the food here would be good.


The China kiosk's menu had a nice sampling of snacks, including noodles, potstickers, barbecue and ice cream. We tried them all.


First up, the black pepper shrimp with Sichuan noodles ($4.50):


M's take: These were OK. I expected the dish to be spicier since it said Sichuan noodles on the menu, but I guess they lessened the spiciness to appeal to more people. I liked the addition of the green onions and cilantro.

A's take: Sichuan means one thing to me: spicy. These noodles? Not spicy. There also, as you can see from the picture, was very little pepper on the black pepper shrimp. The noodles were fairly tasty, but they definitely fall short as a Sichuan dish.

Second, the pork pot stickers ($3.50):


M's take: These were also just OK. They tasted fine but were nothing special or different from potstickers you can get anywhere else. And they certainly didn't feel like they were worth $3.50. That's more expensive per dumpling than Rickshaw!

A's take: The potstickers were fine, nothing special. In the end they're more expensive than good.

The last savory snack was the Xinjiang barbecue chicken stick ($3.50):


M's take: I had been picturing a chicken skewer (like the size of chicken satay) and couldn't understand how they could possibly charge $3.50 for that. I was pleased when I saw that the chicken stick actually held a fairly large piece of chicken. The chicken stick was also quite flavorful.

A's take: My first thought when I saw this was that it was a skinny chicken breast on a stick. The flavor was actually really good, though. More than just salt, it had a bit of sweetness to it and just enough char to make it really great.

For dessert, they had caramel ginger ice cream ($3.25):


M's take: This was interesting. I didn't really want much ice cream at the time and this was a fairly large container. From the label, it came from the Lotus Blossom Cafe, which is the quick service place at the China Pavilion, so I guess it's a regular item. I thought it would just be regular ice cream flavored with some caramel sauce and ginger spices, but it seemed like it was caramel ice cream (with a relatively strong caramel flavor) and real pieces of ginger mixed in. I still didn't eat very much of it but I found the ginger mix-in to be interesting.

A's take: I love ice cream. This was good ice cream. Velvety and sweet caramel ice cream with bits of ginger mixed in to give it a little spice and snap. M left most of this to me since she didn't want very much of it. I probably shouldn't have eaten what she left for me, but I couldn't stop. I do have to admit that I would not get it again, though, because it's a lot of ice cream, and it was really heavy.

Favorite dishes at the China kiosk:
A: Chicken stick (more because of the price vs value and heaviness)
M: Chicken stick