After a month, I finally went out to let the wind blow.
Take advantage of the holidays and my parents to go to a small and unpopular ancient town near my home to eat and stroll around, and enjoy the good spring light in April. Put three pictures first, and you can guess where my destination is.
Announcement of the correct answer: Hagi Port, an ancient silk town located in Nanxun, Huzhou.
The first picture is a mulberry tree that is bearing mulberry fruit; the second picture is a tributary of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal flowing through the ancient town; and the third picture is a one-dollar tea house that witnesses the history of the town, which are the most conspicuous labels of Hagigang Ancient Town.
When it comes to Nanxun, everyone knows more about Xiaolianzhuang. It is the sunny spring white snow of the rich, and Hagi Port has a completely different style, which is the life interest of ordinary people in The Riba people.
Maybe some friends see this and immediately want to row out, thinking "Ancient town, that is not all the same." I dare not say anything else, at least Hagi Port has a very distinct label.
Not to mention its glorious history of silk production, or the location of the largest and best-preserved Sankey fish pond in China, it is enough to look unique in a group of ancient towns with a table of Hagi Port "Chen Family Cuisine" with a unique flavor and cannot be eaten elsewhere.
So when you write about Hagi-ko, you might as well start with food.
1
An affordable hagi-port fishing village
It's not that I blow, I think Huzhou cuisine is really good.
Probably because it is close to Jiangsu, the overall taste of the dish is sweet and salty; the geographical advantage of being on the verge of Taihu Lake makes the umami taste of fish and shrimp also a regular customer on our table. Authentic Huzhou food is like a walking recipe, as soon as the corresponding season taste buds begin to move, the season is the alarm clock in their hearts.
▲Drizzled shrimp in oil
The Chen family dish I only learned when I came to Hagi Port is said to have been studied by Ogi Port's son-in-law Chen Guofu (a Kuomintang elder) during the Republic of China period and his personal chef. The third generation of Chen Jia Cai is currently in charge of the Hagi Harbor Fishing Estate, so although there are other restaurants in the town, I chose this one.
When you walk into the store, you will follow the yard of someone else's house, and there is a pond in the middle. There are not many customers to eat, the clerk arranged a private room for us who did not have a reservation, and the environment is good.
Looking at the menu, compared to dishes from other places in Huzhou, one of the characteristics of Hagi-ko is that there are many dishes that incorporate mulberry leaves. As soon as we sat down, a cup of mulberry leaf tea was brought to us.
Eating a bowl of scrambled mulberry leaves with native eggs can also be used as a spring ceremony. Its method is similar to the appearance of scrambled eggs with toon, except that it uses young mulberry leaves that have just sprouted, and the aroma in the mouth is not the same, in short, it is the taste of spring.
Its unassuming mulberry leaf paste noodles are stunning in one bite, and the delicious broth can be wrapped well in noodles, which is super enjoyable.
Pastries made from mulberry leaves and mulberry fruits debut together to form a mulberry platter. Although the taste is not very obvious, there is still a sense of pleasure in eating spring.
Hagi-mik's Sankey Fish Pond refers to the production method of combining mulberry silkworm farming and fish pond fish farming, and after eating mulberry, you must not be less fish.
The variety of fish and the variety of methods are the second major characteristics of the Chen family cuisine in Hagi Harbor. The restaurant's signature stone pot mandarin fish was so delicious that we finally ate the soup with meat.
As soon as the broth was poured into the hot stone pot, it began to boil wildly, and then the sliced mandarin fish meat was put directly into the pot, and the fish was immediately cooked after stirring a few times.
The little sister urged us to eat quickly: when we are old, it is not delicious.
There is also some stir-fried fragrant rice in the pot, and after sucking up the soup, the freshness of the fish soup has a taste and taste at the same time. The soup is fresh and tender, and even two bowls are not enough to eat.
There must be at least 20 dishes on the menu about fish, and if you count the different methods, you will have more, really river fresh paradise.
The next is the traditional Huzhou cuisine, although these dishes can be eaten in local restaurants, but the Hagi Port Fishing Village is of a high standard and the price is affordable, otherwise people in the city will not often drive more than 20 kilometers to eat.
My first recommendation is the fish ball soup, which is very light and extremely delicious.
Unsavory shops will mix a lot of powder in the fish, resulting in a hardened taste. The fish here bite down soft and delicate, and there is some sense of air. After eating the next one, the aroma of the minced fish still stays in the mouth, which is really fresh.
The second course recommends meatloaf, which is one of my favorites. Excessively highly fried and the wrong proportion of fat and lean meat will affect the taste. The meatloaf made by Hagi port fishing village is just right, and it has a very airy feeling like fish balls. Both the surface and the taste of eating it are not greasy at all, only the satisfaction brought by the full meat aroma.
Vinegar is also a great contributor, and it is the standard for meatloaf.
The third course recommends pearl meat balls, and the sticky rice with the aroma of meat is super delicious. This one can be ranked in the top three of my meat balls, and the focus is on the proportion and seasoning of the meat filling.
In addition, it is also recommended to have rotten eel silk and fine sand sheep's tail, which are must-order Huzhou dishes.
The eel is salty and fresh, and the eel meat slipped in the oil is very tender, and then served with ginger shredded, green onion, ham, mushroom and shrimp, stirred together to add flavor, the finishing touch is the pepper sprinkled at the end.
The fine sand sheep's tail is named because it is shaped like a sheep's tail, wrapped in red bean paste with beaten egg whites and fried in a pan, and under the crispy appearance is a soft heart, and the taste is very special.
Not only are the meat dishes amazing, but the vegetables at hagi port fishing estates are also outstanding, because they are fresh enough.
This bowl of fried broad beans is the best I have ever had, the beans wrapped in the aroma of garlic paste are so tender that they do not need to spit shells, and the freshness of spring has a new carrier in my heart.
Nanxun's specialty vegetable embroidered scarf looks like a small cabbage, but its leaves will be more umami and is a popular vegetable in this season.
Overall, the price of Hagi Port Fishing Village is more cost-effective than similar restaurants in Huzhou City, although it also has a branch at Fisherman's Wharf on the shore of Taihu Lake, but the price is more expensive and more touristy, and Hagi Port is the private collection of locals.
The restaurant also comes with a kiosk with a large number of "Mulberry Series" souvenirs. Mainly cake dumplings, mulberry leaves and mulberry fruits have become ingredients, and you really can't eat them anywhere else.
The area around Hagi Port Fishing Village is like a miniature version of Sankey Fish Pond, the path is surrounded by fish ponds, and the weather was good that day, and the fish ran to the surface of the water to bask in the sun.
Along the fish pond were planted two rows of mulberry trees that had already been filled with mulberry fruits, and now I saw the Buddha-figures who had just eaten into their stomachs.
Before leaving, Chinese's genes were crazy, and he picked a lot of wild Maran heads to take home and fry them. The idyllic life of eating with the season is really a bit of a joy.
2
Tranquil and pure HagiGang ancient town
A 500-meter walk from Hagigang Fishing Village is Hagi-gang Ancient Town, where Lao She's son Shu Yi wrote "the best Jiangnan town". He once wrote an article admiring Hagi-ko's quaint temperament, and it's been a long time since he wrote it, but when I walked into the village, I felt like everything hadn't changed. Walking in the long cloister winding alley, what you see is the simple life of the villagers, and there are countless old stone bridges on the river, which is the water town of Jiangnan.
The scenic area of the ancient town is hidden in the village, and it is necessary to find the outer alley first.
This promenade is adjacent to the tributary of the canal, DongyuanXi, and the frequent movement of cargo ships on the river is exactly the same as the scene on the Hangzhou Canal. If the boat goes all the way south, it can reach the Hangzhou section of the canal.
Compared with the bustle on the river, the houses on the other side of the promenade are a bit deserted. Every room has its doors locked and no one lives there anymore. Living here to listen to the sound of the cargo ship "suddenly" day and night, it is indeed a little difficult to put it now.
After passing through the outer alley, turn a corner is the inner alley, the gathering place of the town's shops. The promenade is more spacious, with some wooden structures at the top, and you can see the high and low wooden beams subtly supporting the weight of the eaves.
None of the stores along the river in this row sell tourist souvenirs, selling things that the villagers want to eat and use every day.
The first one was a wonton shop, where wontons and tangyuan can be double-spelled, and you can eat a bowl for less than 10 yuan.
Going forward will encounter several cake shops, this point in time, the most beautiful is definitely the green dough. The two drawers that have just come out of a store are already ordered by others, and they can't buy them if they want to.
In addition to the most classic red bean paste filling, qingtuan also has a yellow soybean paste filling and a white skin maran head filling. The frequency of Dingsheng cake is also very high, and it can be eaten directly when bought, and it is also soft.
I went from snacks to large osmanthus sugar rice cakes, red sugar and white sugar, which can be steamed or fried, or boiled into white porridge, sweet and soft to the extreme. The prices in the town are very friendly, and the handwritten price tag is a real underpinning.
Unlike the busyness of pastry owners, the noodle shop owner is comfortably playing cards with friends.
Next to the noodle shop is the noodle restaurant, if you have not just eaten a good meal, I really want to come to a bowl of fried fish noodles.
The one that made me stay the longest on the whole street was Juhua Garden, which is a one-dollar tea house, which is full of traces of time.
Neighbors said that tea was used to be on the second floor, and then the house was destroyed by termites, and the first floor was used.
The walls are full of memories, when the current owner took over, the tea house has been open for 60 years, and he has been working for 40 years, so Juhuayuan is a veritable century-old tea house.
I ordered a 5-dollar smoked bean tea and sat down to rest my feet. For nearby residents, it's a regular place to chat and play cards; for young people, it's a place to see "patience and persistence" and it's not easy to hold on to a shop.
In addition to being a teahouse, it is also a barber shop.
Search for the news a few years ago, when the boss could still get a haircut himself, but now his body is no longer allowed, and he can only rely on other barbers in the town to help. Neighbors said that the boss's facial repair technology is good, I immediately thought of the barbershop in Shanghai before, haircut + social, here is not the grounded version of barbershop?
Something hasn't changed, and something has changed.
There are two ancient temples in Hagigang Town, one of which was rebuilt in the Song Dynasty, and the plaque of the Daxiong Treasure Hall inside was originally written by Yan Song. However, due to the epidemic situation, it is impossible to visit now.
The New Year's activities in front of the ancient temple were very lively in the neighborhoods where tea was drunk in the tea house, and it has not been done for three years now, and the look is a little lost.
The words "travel suspension" on the billboard also poked me in the heart.
After leaving Hagi Harbor, I planned to stop by the Qianshan Yang site to continue to explore the history of silk, but when I arrived at the door, I found that the scenic spot was closed. During the holidays, I originally planned to go to Shanlian, the hometown of Hubi, but I saw news reports the day before I left and closed several villages.
So I cherish the simple and simple but happy eating tour of this day spent in Hagigang Ancient Town, and it is indeed worth visiting and eating.
If you come to Huzhou to play later, you can add Hagi Port to the itinerary, even if it is just to have a meal is worth it.
/Traffic Tips/
- HagiGang Ancient Town is about a 2.5-hour drive from Shanghai and about a 1-hour drive from Hangzhou.
- From Huzhou city, about 24 kilometers, you can reach by bus; from Nanxun Ancient Town, about 40 kilometers, taxi will be more convenient.
/Accommodation Recommendation/
- Hagigang Ancient Town is dominated by homestays, and the conditions are relatively general.
- It is more recommended that everyone live in Huzhou city, you can choose Sheraton, Crowne Plaza, Narada, etc., high-star hotels are concentrated in Taihu Lake, take a day to go to Hagi Port day trip is just right.
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