Day 3 : Impressions @ Fenghuang

From Yiyang, it took 5 hours to get to Fenghuang Old Town. We drove away from the city, through the pastoral countryside .... and went through countless tunnels, and by the time we reached Fenghuang, it was time for lunch.

We had both our lunch and dinner at a restaurant called <印象凤凰> or Impressions @ Fenghuang. According to MH, this restaurant has the best ambience here at this tourist town.

Well, we were only supposed to have lunch at Impressions, and dinner was supposed to be at the hotel. But that day, there was a power failure at the hotel. As a result, the hotel could not prepare dinner ..... so MH brought us back to Impressions for dinner instead.

The main road here at Fenghuang was rather narrow and bumpy ....and there were so many cars, vans and tour buses out-manouvreing one another .... resulting in a scary ride. At the Impressions car park, the cars drove so closely to one another that I thought they were going to bang into one another at anytime! I could only marvel at the skill of the drivers.

At dinner time, we were stuck at the entrance .... the security guard refused to raise the barrier and let us in. That caused our driver to come out of the car to give the security guard a piece of his mind. We could only watch in awe as the security guard finally gave way ....

Actually, I did like the food here a lot.

Wooden ancient houses built on stilts, an attraction at Fenghuang old town, and these house decorations on the wall of the restaurant seemed apt


What a nice place to enjoy our meals ....

The tableware

Well, at Fenghuang, blood cake was considered a delicacy. It sounded a bit like vampire food, right? The word "blood" would induce fear amongst people ... and to eat it ... well .... *shivers*. 

Blood cake (血粑)

Blood cake was made from the blood of a duck, mixed with glutinous rice and some spices. The mixture would be then steamed and then cut into squares and dried under the soon. Before cooking, the blood cake would deep-fried and then stewed. 

Here at Impressions, we were served a Duck & Blood Cake Stew. 

Duck & blood cake stew
The mildly thick gravy tasted of some spices, and in fact it flavoured the tender pieces of duck meat very tastily. I dared myself to try a piece of blood cake .... and guess what? It was delicious indeed! The texture of soft and sticky .... somewhat like nian gao. The stinky taste of blood was not there at all. Instead I could taste the fragrance of the glutinous rice, which was very savoury when eaten together with the gravy. I had many pieces of blood cake!!

Steamed catfish

The flesh of the fish was smooth and slippery ..... but there was just a wee bit fishy taste there that prevented me from totally liking this dish

Steamed egg custard

Yums .... soft and slipper and savoury and rich with the flavour of eggs .... nothing ever tasted wrong with eggs

Cabbage stir-fry ... this dish was quite plain 

Kelp soup .... it tasted quite nice, quite umami

When we returned for dinner, we sampled some other dishes this restaurant had to offer.

Soup fish soup 酸汤鱼

Catfish was used in this dish. Deep-fried catfish tasted better than the steamed ones indeed. For one, it had a harder texture as it had been fried till golden brown, and the crunchy bits were really delicious to eat. The fish was cooked using lots of pickled cabbage and chillies. The cabbage tasted like kimchi! I loved kimchi, and I loved chillies, and therefore I loved this sour dish lots. Yums .... I'd love to have this again. Perhaps I would have to learn to replicate this at home ... hmn ...

String beans and eggplant stirfy

This dish was cooked plain with just garlic, but it was very tasty .... lots of oil at the bottom of the plate though ... 

Stir-fry ferns with cured meat 蕨菜炒腊肉

I liked the colour of the fern. It was purple! It was a delicacy here and was quite expensive. But I found the fern to be stringy, and I did not really enjoy the flavour of the cured meat ... so .... hmn ... 

Cabbage and meatball soup
The soup was rich and robust in flavour, and I knew that good quality stock was used. There were meatballs and glass vermicelli inside. The soup was served piping hot .... and I loved it lots!

Well .... two meals here ... and I was glad I enjoyed the food they served. It gave me a good impression and made Fenghuang all the more memorable for me!