Chengdu eats between meals more seriously than almost any city in China, and its snack tradition is organised around named shops. Several of the best known were founded in the nineteenth or early twentieth century, built their reputation on a single dish, and are still trading under the same name and, in most cases, still making that dish the same way. They are cheap, quick and authentically local, and a crawl through four or five of them is a better introduction to Sichuan food than any single restaurant.
The classic names
The best known is a glutinous rice ball shop founded in the 1890s, whose tangyuan are filled with black sesame and sugar and served in the sweet liquid they were boiled in; the point is the thinness of the skin and the balance of the filling, and a small bowl is enough. A wonton house founded in the 1940s serves thin-skinned pork wontons in a chilli and sesame sauce, either in soup or dressed; the origami-like folding of the wrappers is as much part of the dish as the filling. A dumpling shop dating from the 1890s serves boiled pork dumplings in a sweetened chilli oil with garlic, a Chengdu rather than Chongqing version of the dish. There is also a tofu house founded in the 1860s, named after the woman who ran it, whose mapo tofu is the ancestor of the version served worldwide.
The street snacks
Beyond the shops, the wet markets and snack streets sell the dishes that have no single inventor: three-shell rice balls, which are pounded out of glutinous rice, rolled in sesame and soybean flour and thrown so hard they make a bang against a gong, hence the name; dan dan noodles, served in a tiny bowl with chilli oil, sesame paste and minced pork; cold jelly noodles; sweet fermented rice soup; and skewers either grilled or cooked in a communal pot. Portions are small and cheap, which is the whole idea: you eat five things in an afternoon rather than one large meal.
Practical notes
The old-name shops are spread around the centre, with a good concentration near the commercial districts and the teahouse quarters. They are open from morning to evening, they are casual, and most have picture menus or English names printed on the wall. Expect to pay very little. The Sichuan flavour profile is chilli with a numbing pepper overlay and a sweet note in many dishes, so if you are not used to heat, order the sweet rice balls and the clear soups alongside the spicy items and eat in that order.
