"Chengdu"

If, when you think of China, you think of pandas, you'll want to make sure the city of Chengdu is high on your list of must-sees. It's here you'll find the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, a massive facility that is home to more than 80 of these wonderful animals.

Tours of the facility include a chance to see pandas up close. If you can, try to time your visit to coincide with feeding time. Also worth seeing, the on-site museum features exhibits detailing everything you'll ever want to know about the challenges of conserving these notoriously placid creatures.

For a chance to see pandas in the wild, take a day trip to the Wolong Nature Reserve, two hours west of Chengdu. This vast scenic area serves to protect the natural habitat of pandas and other important species.

Other Chengdu attractions worth seeing include numerous old pagodas and bridges, along with the many historic alleys in the old part of the city. There are also many religious sites here, too, such as the Monastery of Precious Light and Chengdu Huangcheng Mosque, one of China's oldest and most important Muslim sites. 

Food in Chengdu

1. Cold Chicken in Chili Oil  (凉拌鸡 – Liang Ban Ji)

Cold-dishes are underrated in general, but this one does an especially amazing job of capturing a wide range of flavors that shout “Sichuan”.  Both heavy handed and delicate, it combines the famed numb and hot or mala flavor/feeling of Sichuan cuisine and mixes it with fermented vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, Sichuan pepper oil, sugar, sesame and spring onions. While the spiciness hits you up front it is the balance of flavors that makes this dish stand out, and likewise make it a good test of a chef’s ability. It is not an easy dish to make and many places can go too heavy on the spice, or the numbing peppers and lose the balance, but a good Liang Ban Ji is one of the best representations of Sichuan food you can find.

2. Spiced Steamed Beef (粉蒸牛肉 – Fen Zheng Niu Rou)

One of the classic dishes of Leshan, this steamed beef dish is as tender as they come.  The beef is coated in ground rice and spices and steamed inside bamboo steamers then garnished with garlic, chili powder and cilantro before serving. Delicately fragrant and sweet with only a subtle hint of chilis even those people not into ‘mala‘ can get into this. Steaming beef is just something you don’ hear much about, but this proves its a great idea.

3. Clear Jelly Noodles in Red Chili Sauce

Liangfen (凉粉 liángfěn 'cool rice noodles') is another well-known representative of Sichuan street snacks nowadays. There are several varieties of it. Some liangfen swim in red chili oil soup that might have sesame oil. Some herbs such as cilantro are generally added to taste. In Chengdu, they make the thick translucent noodles from pea starch, sweet potato starch or mung bean starch, so there are three common varieties to try. The spicy hot noodles make a good contrast to the sweet wheat noodles, and you’ll usually find the sweet noodle dishes sold by the same restaurants or adjacent restaurants or kiosks. In addition to the red chili sauce variety, another variety of liangfen is made with bean paste sauce. The locals think liangfen helps them to adapt to high temperatures of the Chengdu summer days.

4. Husband and Wife Lung Slices in Chili Sauce 夫妻肺片

Pork lungs in chili sauce or beef lungs in chili sauce are two varieties of what locals call fuqi feipian (夫妻肺片 fūqī fèi piàn). It is a special and well-known flavorsome dish in the Chengdu area. According to legend, early in the 20th century in a small town near Chengdu, a man called Zhao Hanhua (郭朝华) and his wife trundled around carts in the streets with vinegared cattle lung slices. The dish was so popular that locals started calling it a special name: 'Husband and Wife Lung Slices'.