Changbai Mountain Travel Food Guide, Full of Tasty Delights!

Changbai Mountain Travel Food Guide

Featured Food Introduction

• Stewed Dishes
  • Changbai Mountain Iron Pot Stew
    • Dish Features: Cooked slowly in an iron pot with ingredients and seasonings together. The common ones include iron pot stewed fish, which uses local cold-water fish in Changbai Mountain, such as Brachymystax lenok, with tender meat and no earthy smell at all; and iron pot stewed goose, where the goose meat is well seasoned and the accompanying side dishes like potatoes and vermicelli soak up the rich broth, giving a mellow taste.
    • Recommended Restaurant: “Lao Guan Dong Iron Pot Stew” at the foot of Changbai Mountain. The interior of the store is full of Northeast China style, and the taste of the iron pot stew is authentic with generous portions.
  • Stewed Chicken with Hazel Mushrooms
    • Dish Features: Local free-range chickens and hazel mushrooms are used. Hazel mushrooms are a specialty of Changbai Mountain, with a unique wild mountain aroma. The chicken becomes tender and juicy after stewing, and the two flavors blend perfectly together.
    • Recommended Restaurant: The stewed chicken with hazel mushrooms at the “Xue Xiang Ren Jia” restaurant is very authentic, with a strong mushroom flavor and the chicken cooked just right.
• Soup Dishes
  • Ginseng Chicken Soup
    • Dish Features: Changbai Mountain ginseng is selected and stewed with an old hen. The chicken soup has a light golden color, clear and delicious. The unique medicinal fragrance of ginseng and the umami of chicken combine perfectly, and it has a high nourishing effect.
    • Recommended Restaurant: At “Han Shi Fu” in Erdaobaihe Town, you can taste high-quality ginseng chicken soup. The chicken is tender enough to fall off the bone, and the chicken soup is rich and fragrant.
  • Tianchi Fish Soup
    • Dish Features: Made mainly from cold-water fish in Tianchi. These fish grow in the cold and pure Tianchi water, with firm meat and a delicious taste. The fish soup is milky white, with a rich texture and rich in nutrients.
    • Recommended Place: There are opportunities to taste it in some restaurants in the Changbai Mountain scenic area, but due to the rarity of the ingredients, the price may be relatively high.
• Barbecue Dishes
  • Changbai Mountain Skewers
    • Dish Features: There is a rich variety of special skewers, including tender lamb skewers, beef skewers, as well as local specialties like roasted quail and roasted solid eggs. The seasoning of the skewers is unique, emphasizing highlighting the original flavor of the ingredients while also giving a rich aroma.
    • Recommended Restaurant: “Jin Da Lai Skewer City” is quite famous locally. The skewers have fresh meat and the heat is just right, and the environment inside the store is clean and tidy.
• Special Staple Foods
  • Korean Cold Noodles
    • Dish Features: Made by mixing buckwheat flour or wheat flour with starch and water and then pressing. It is served with ingredients such as beef slices, kimchi, shredded cucumbers, pear slices, etc., and topped with a cold, sweet and sour special broth. The taste is refreshing and very suitable for summer or to relieve greasiness after tasting rich foods.
    • Recommended Restaurant: The cold noodles at the “Yanji Cold Noodles” store are authentic, with the sweet and sour degree of the broth adjusted just right and the noodles are chewy.
  • Dagao (Korean Rice Cake)
    • Dish Features: Glutinous rice is steamed and then repeatedly pounded to give it a soft and chewy texture. It can be eaten by dipping it in soybean powder, white sugar or red bean paste, with a sweet taste.
    • Recommended Place: You can buy freshly made dagao in Korean villages or some special markets, with the best taste.

Food Exploration Routes and Areas

• Erdaobaihe Town
  • As a tourist town at the foot of Changbai Mountain, it is full of delicious foods. You can stroll along the commercial street in the center of the town and find numerous restaurants and snack stalls. There are all kinds of restaurants, from traditional Northeast China cuisine restaurants to special Korean restaurants. In addition to some of the restaurants mentioned above, there are many other places where you can taste local special foods. For example, at the “Dongbei Ren Jia Restaurant”, you can taste authentic Northeast China home-cooked dishes such as Di San Xian (a dish of three sautéed vegetables) and Guo Bao Rou (fried pork in batter).
• Songjianghe Town
  • There are some restaurants in the town that specialize in local mountain delicacies. Here you can find foods made from Changbai Mountain wild mushrooms, wild vegetables and other ingredients. For example, the wild mushroom hot pot gathers various freshly picked wild mushrooms in one pot. The boiled soup is delicious, and the various mushrooms have different textures, bringing a rich experience to the taste buds.

Cultural Stories or Background Knowledge Related to Food

• Ginseng Culture
  • In the Changbai Mountain area, ginseng is regarded as the “King of Herbs” and has a long history of ginseng harvesting and profound cultural heritage. The dish of ginseng chicken soup is not only a delicious food but also contains the respect for the medicinal value of ginseng and the inheritance of the traditional concept of nourishment. After ginseng harvesters endure hardships in the mountains to harvest ginseng, they will use it to stew chicken soup to replenish physical strength and nourish the body.
• Korean Dietary Culture
  • Delicious foods such as Korean cold noodles and dagao reflect the characteristics of Korean dietary culture. The production process and unique taste of Korean cold noodles reflect the Koreans’ love for refreshing, sweet and sour flavors and the concept of pursuing integration with nature in diet; dagao is an essential food in traditional Korean festivals or important celebrations, and the process of making dagao is also a kind of cultural inheritance, symbolizing reunion and harvest.