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Chengdu, Sichuan, China Lotus Culinary Travel’s flagship China immersion takes the road less traveled and heads straight for the country's Wild West, the source of its most exciting cuisine. Join us in the province of Sichuan, and its culinary capital, Chengdu, a city that may be a well-kept travel secret in the West but is revered in China as the most enticing food city on the mainland. In Chengdu, we’ll experience the region’s incomparable food culture—from street food to fine restaurants, from markets to kitchens—led by local experts and master chefs from the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine, the country’s top culinary school. The Food The tingle and thrill of the Sichuan peppercorn is a good metaphor for our Sichuan experience. Combined with chile peppers in many classic dishes, the Sichuan peppercorn packs an aromatic and lightly numbing punch that is the perfect foil for the heat. Tasting the real thing in Chengdu, many people find themselves strangely attracted—even somewhat addicted—to the quintessential taste of Sichuan. But Sichuan food is about far more than the famous “hot and numbing” flavor. While Western writers dwell on its spicy heat, a better description of this cuisine might be confident and bold, since many classic Sichuan dishes are neither hot nor numbing but simply delicious. The Chinese admire Sichuan cuisine for the entire range of sophisticated flavor combinations turned out by its famously talented chefs, including fish-fragrant flavor, homestyle flavor, lychee flavor, salt-sweet flavor and strange flavor, to name just a few.
Our treat is trying the famous Sichuan hotpot in its home province, where it’s served with an endless number of fresh and fancy ingredients to cook in the spicy broth. We’ll learn all about xiao chi, or little eats—a feast of small plates and snacks that started out as street food but gradually moved indoors to be served under one roof. We’ll also sample market fare, country cooking, banquet feasts and New Sichuan cuisine, always from immaculate kitchens. We’ll talk to noodle and dumpling makers, shop for Sichuan pickles and spices and generally marvel at the variety and inventiveness of real Chinese food. Then we’ll take what we’ve seen and tasted and head to the kitchen, learning to cut, combine and cook ingredients the traditional Chinese way and making authentic sauces and dishes that are almost impossible to find in the West.
The City As if the food weren’t enough of a reason to visit the province of Sichuan, its capital, Chengdu, which means Perfect Metropolis, is—according to Travel & Leisure magazine—“the great unsung city of China.” Three hours from Beijing or Shanghai or a one-hour flight from Xi’an, Chengdu boasts an important panda-breeding center, fire-breathing, “face-changing” Sichuan opera and the inspiring Wenshu monastery, the epitome of a Buddhist temple. A teeming, bustling megalopolis, and an engine of China’s western growth, Chengdu nonetheless remains best known for its bold cuisine, laid-back attitude and love of life. The Chengdunese have a highly developed appreciation of culture and food, and they are second to none in China when it comes to the art of whiling away the hours—chatting with friends, playing mahjong—in a splendid teahouse garden.
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