lost in Provence

Chengdu food is always known for flexible use of chills and delicate flavors created by people here, which rightly echos the characteristic of Sichuan food" 'one dish, one style; one hundred dishes, one hundred flavors'.

When talking about Chengdu food, there is no doubt that spicy will come into people's mind immediately. Mapo Tofu, Dandan noodles, Dumpling Zhong and many other famous cuisine in Chengdu are spicy with flower pepper as a additional flavor.Spicy is not the whole picture. The tastes can range from simply spicy, sour, sweet, salty or a combination of any two or three of them, cooking in a series of techniques.No matter various tastes,cooking methods or the special combination of meat and vegetable, all prove the same pursuit of Chengdu cuisine - harmony and compatibility, which are also the character of local culture here in Chengdu.
If it is a competition of selecting a spokesman for Chengdu Culture, I would rather give more votes to tea comparing with the food despite its high reputation.Some tea houses are kept in an old-fashioned style where you can experience traditional Chengdu life and culture in the past, but some of them are kept in a new style as the society is moving forward, whose environments are quite comfortable with typical cultural symbols as dicoration. Old-fashioned style tea houses are noisy, ,most tea drinkers are old people or in their middle age years. Although they are strangers to each others, they can chat with each other about almost everything from the star in the sky to current affairs in and abroad .But they will head for their own ways when the talks come to an end. Sichuan Opera, Pingshu(Storytelling) or some other traditional cultural style were originally born in these tea houses, and have became typical name cards standing for the local culture gradually. Artisans offering services like face-shaving, foot treatment, hair-braiding or ear-picking will walking around the houses to look for their customers.