100 Chinese Foods to Try Before You Die

The Omnivore's 100 has been making the rounds in food blogs, but I cheered when I saw Diana Kuan's version with Chinese foods. Let's see how I did (some of the numbers didn't bold with the words):

1. Almond milk
   
2. Ants Climbing a Tree (poetic, not literal, name)
3. Asian pear
4. Baby bok choy
5. Baijiu
6. Beef brisket
7. Beggar's Chicken
8. Bingtang hulu
9. Bitter melon
10. Bubble tea
11. Buddha's Delight
12. Cantonese roast duck (My world revolves around roast duck)
    
13. Century egg, or thousand-year egg
14. Cha siu (Cantonese roast pork)
15. Char kway teow
16. Chicken feet
17. Chinese sausage (More by-products than an American hot dog, but oh-so-very good)
18. Chow mein
19. Chrysanthemum tea
20. Claypot rice
21. Congee
22. Conpoy (dried scallops)
23. Crab rangoon
24. Dan Dan noodles
25. Dragonfruit
26. Dragon's Beard candy (You haven't lived until you've tried this stuff)
27. Dried cuttlefish
28. Drunken chicken
29. Dry-fried green beans
30. Egg drop soup
31. Egg rolls
32. Egg tart, Cantonese or Macanese (I've had both, actually.)
33. Fresh bamboo shoots
34. Fortune cookies
35. Fried milk
36. Fried rice
37. Gai lan (Chinese broccoli)
38. General Tso's Chicken
39. Gobi Manchurian
40. Goji berries (Chinese wolfberries)
41. Grass jelly (I'm terribly addicted to this stuff)
42. Hainan chicken rice (A family specialty)
    
43. Hand-pulled noodles
44. Har gau (steamed shrimp dumplings in translucent wrappers)
45. Haw flakes
46. Hibiscus tea
47. Hong Kong-style Milk Tea
48. Hot and sour soup
49. Hot Coca-Cola with Ginger
50. Hot Pot
51. Iron Goddess tea (Tieguanyin)
52. Jellyfish
53. Kosher Chinese food
    
54. Kung Pao Chicken
55. Lamb skewers (yangrou chua'r)
56. Lion's Head meatballs
57. Lomo Saltado (Peruvian-Chinese food?! YAY!)
58. Longan fruit
59. Lychee
60. Macaroni in soup with Spam
61. Malatang
62. Mantou, especially if fried and dipped in sweetened condensed milk
63. Mapo Tofu
64. Mock meat
65. Mooncake (bonus points for the snow-skin variety) (True to my Hong Kong roots, I will eat nothing but the Cantonese-style mooncakes... sorry, Diana. :))
    
66. Nor mai gai (chicken and sticky rice in lotus leaf)
67. Pan-fried jiaozi
68. Peking duck
69. Pineapple bun
70. Prawn crackers
71. Pu'er tea
72. Rambutan
73. Red bean in dessert form (This makes me a bad, bad Chinese-American, but I can't stand hong dau saa or red bean soup)
    
74. Red bayberry
75. Red cooked pork
76. Roast pigeon
77. Rose tea
78. Roujiamo
79. Scallion pancake
80. Shaved ice dessert
81. Sesame chicken
82. Sichuan pepper in any dish
83. Sichuan preserved vegetable (zhacai)
84. Silken tofu
85. Soy milk, freshly made
86. Steamed egg custard
87. Stinky tofu
88. Sugar cane juice
89. Sweet and sour pork, chicken, or shrimp
90. Taro
91. Tea eggs
92. Tea-smoked duck
93. Turnip cake (law bok gau)
94. Twice-cooked pork
95. Water chestnut cake (mati gau)
96. Wonton noodle soup (drool, drool... one of my favorite dishes)
    
97. Wood ear
98. Xiaolongbao (soup dumplings)
99. Yuanyang (half coffee, half tea, Hong Kong style)
100. Yunnan goat cheese

83 out of 100. Not bad for a Los Angeles-raised ex-pat kid, eh? My score would be a helluva lot lower if the parental units tried to Americanize our eating habits or if I didn't live in immigrant-heavy L.A.