I don't even have to miss food from home. I miss the food and selections from when I was in Beijing and Shanghai for a couple years. Saw a post on Paul's on wenhuaxiang and that place is a scam, but we are all driven to get a few things from there I guess. At least twice -or more- the price you would pay in Bejing. Those little markets like that are not novelties there either wherethey charge 3 or 4x the price in American dollars for a product. And could get cheese, bread and sandwich meat and most of the supermarkets anyway. This must be the Hooterville of larger cities in China. Miss the Cantonese food you good get in those places and the much better Thai and Indian food places.
@Texas Boy: Yea, what would be wrong with a bologna and chess sandwich, with American or Swiss cheese, mayo and just some fresh, soft Wonder Bread! And Lays chips with french Onion dip! Food does not get better than that mate!
Agree with BillDan, Frozen dinners are great.
Some nice tortilla chips and dips would be good too.
...sardine and tomato sandwich spread, salad cream, marmite, Branston sweet pickle, McDonalds, Cup-o-soup, 'And Lays chips with french Onion dip! Food does not get better than that mate!' (Yes, it really does), Frozen dinners FFS!
Each to his own i suppose but most of the stuff listed here makes me wince. Crappy, salty, sweet food full of chemicals.
Honestly, if you can't find good food here you're just not looking hard enough. And for all those other things which you pine for... make it yourself! Burgers, guacamole, soups (made with actual vegetables rather than flavored powder), gravy (again not made from powder) bread... all easily made and with fresh ingredients, bought cheaply. One poster here complains about 'inedible gristle ad cartridge serving as the beef' and uses Mcdonalds as a substitute. Oh the irony. Do you know what goes into a Mcdonalds burger? It 'aint tenderloin that's for sure.
Half the other stuff can be found quite easily with a little effort.
Anyone who thinks that Paul's is a scam would appear to have very little commercial awareness.
It is unrealistic to compare Kunming with Beijing.
The supply chain to Kunming is much longer with more middle men.
The customer base is smaller, and so getting the turnover to cover fixed costs and wages is much harder.
Paul's will not be buying in bulk and getting the bulk discount.
Rents in Kunming are higher than most people would expect, possibly even similar to BJ, believe it or not. A number of expat businesses have been rent hiked out of existence in the last few years.
I have no connection with Paul's, but I do hate it when people throw around words like 'scam' when they have little idea of WTF they are talking about.
Prepared horseradish.
I guess I could get some 辣根 and prepare it myself but then I'd need to buy a food-processor.
Other than what has been posted already... I miss:
Decent red wine at a decent price
Craft beers
Good blue cheese (the stuff they have in metro sometimes is an OK replacement)
ADVOCADO's which I eat all the time. So good. Mentioned already but hey.
Salads with decent ingredients... I make my own sometimes but cringe at the thought of how many/much chemicals are on it the lettuce in particular...
Pickled onions (my mums ones)
Decent sweets. Not ones made from meat or some weird fruit or nut that tastes salty and sweet.
Licorice. Decent soft licorice. I would even go for the salty Danish stuff at a push.
Dense bread (no breadmaker, dang)
Sunday roast...
And the following since I lived in Malaysia for a bit:
Assam laksa with crushed fish. Oh god.
Buket teh. Dang.
Plain and simple chicken rice. So good done well.
Indian food. I have yet to head to the place in the North yet, I am hesitant because I am scared of being let down. Is it REALLY good?
Green curry. I have tried every thai place here, not even close.
Ocean, funny thing about your longing for Cup-O-Soup. I was just in Mumbai, India on business and Cup-O-Soup is some sort of faddish food there. In fact, ads for it were plastered to every bus stop I saw. Though, the flavors weren't quite familiar. (Lots of masala this and curry that.)
I really love the food here in China. I don't even mind the lower meat content, since the food is so flavorful and different from what we get in the U.S..
I don't have any consistent, overpowering cravings for food from home, but I do get these occasional, strange desires for things that just remind me of being back home. In many cases, these are junk foods. Some of these things are foods I didn't regularly eat at home. Among them: Spam (which I recently found at Walmart), 7-Eleven hot dogs, microwave burritos, breakfast sausages, instant mashed potatoes, Cheese Whiz (or, Velveeta), that bizarre green marshmallow salad they sell at the deli counter at Safeway, red velvet cake, Wendy's chocolate Frosty, Hot Pockets, SlimJims, Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies, those cloyingly sweet grocery store birthday cakes, orange creamsicles, Arby's cheddar onion fake roast beef sandwiches, Campbell's Chunky Sirloin Soup, Chex Party Mix, Slurpees...I think you get the idea. A totally absurd melange of Meiguo de dongxi that I sometimes go for years without eating when I'm back home. The only explanation I can figure is that they are things I can only get back home.
avocado's and a dash of salt
Stone IPA's, and other craft beers
real wood fire pizza
pretty much all oven food
Doritos's
chili dark chocolate
greek olives
real cheese (that does not cost a fortune)
I saw Chex Mix in Paul's yesterday!
Cadburys Creme Eggs..
