Fujian cuisine, besides foo chow… Where?

Thanks chandavkl. Sweet Aroma Cafe was around such a short time that I didn’t even get to try it, or - obviously - even figure out exactly where around the Las Tunas/Mission intersection it was. I wasn’t spending much time in those plazas around that time, which is why I can’t recall locations of some of the more short-lived restaurants around that intersection.

I thought both of these might be dictation errors, and then I decided to look up “Buddha jumps the wall” since I had never heard of that.

From Buddha Jumps Over The Wall Soup (佛跳墙)

## WHY IS IT CALLED ‘BUDDHA JUMPS OVER THE WALL’?

Every dish comes with a beginning, and this one – with its seemingly odd name – is no different!

It is said that back during the Qing Dynasty, a scholar travelling by foot had kept his food preserved in a clay jar.

Once he got hungry and began cooking it over an open flame, a meditating monk (who was not to eat any meat) caught the scent of the dish and was completely drawn to the fragrance.

The monk then proceeded to jump over the wall to eat the dish, breaking his pledge. When asked about it later, the monk would reply that the meal was so good that even Buddha would jump over the wall to have some!

Fascinating.

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Classic Chinese course. Luxe ingredients, tedious and meticulous preparation; considered an epitome of Fujianese banquet fare (AKA baller dish).

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Just the kind of thing a scholar would put in a jar to eat on the road.

I think it was Noodle Island before which, at the time, had some of the best chicken rice in SoCal.

There are all kinds of origin stories. The one I heard…

The Buddha himself, Sakyamuni, dedicated to compassion to all living things, was sitting in his walled garden in India contemplating.

A man from Fujian came by. Set up his cooking pot outside the wall, and proceeded to make the dish which has many many kinds of fish and seafood, poultry, mammals, all prepared and cooked up into an amazing stew.

The smell was so enticing and tempting that the Buddha himself did not just walk out of the garden to have some but literally jump over the wall to taste it.

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Ha.

Thanks for the note. I changed eighth grade to eight great

Oh, I liked the typo! :slight_smile: And I think it was clear what you had intended to say (write).