Healthy Snack: Sunflower Seeds
The snacks I normally eat during break time or while working are either chocolates, biscuits, chips or fruits. Of the ones I’ve mentioned, fruits are the only healthy snack. We usually get free fruits from our GM when we do her fruit and vegetable shopping. Hehehe.. We’ve had several weeks of wonderful, sweet strawberries.
When the local restaurant near our office were giving away free pack of sunflower seeds as promotion, the whole team became hooked to it. I’m not really sure if there’s a correlation between eating sunflower seeds and acne but I’ve been having acne breakouts again. Maybe not because of the seeds but because of sleeping late, poor diet, no exercise and stress. Oh well.. I should get my lazy butt off the couch and dance to Madonna or Lady Gaga for exercise. Hahahaha!
Lanzhou Beef Noodles
Lanzhou is the capital of Gansu province located at the northwest part of China. Nestled between mountains, the weather is perfect and the scenery is superb. As the city has a significant Muslim population, Muslim restaurants and fast food chains are found in almost every corner. No McDonalds nor Starbucks but several KFC.
The most popular food in Lanzhou is the Lanzhou Beef Noodles (兰州拉面). This 
dish was first created during the reign of Emperor Guangxu (1875 – 1908), Qing Dynasty (1616 – 1911). It has five main features: clear soup, white radish, red pepper, green caraway and yellow noodles. The noodles can be wide or slim to meet different preferences. A bowl of beef noodles cost 10 to 20 yuan and takes only a few minutes to prepare. According to a local, the best place to eat these noodles are in Muslim restaurants.
We had a chance to try this dish and it was huge and filling. It taste like any other noodles but maybe we just don’t know how to mix everything. Our guide put some vinegar on his noodle and spicy sauce so maybe that’s why he finished everything.
New Concept: Toilet Dining!
When the dark restaurant became a fad in Beijing, my Friday dining group went to one of these restaurants to experience it. It was relatively expensive as the waiters need to wear night vision goggles to lead you to your table and serve your food. You order and pay for your food at the lobby area and leave your things in the locker before they lead you to your seats. It was messy, fun and quite an experience. You get to appreciate more those who were born with visual difficulties.