Xingping had a beginning as a fishing village more than 1,700 years ago during the Ming dynasty. Both the former President Sun Yatsen and U.S. President Clinton have visited Xingping, therefore it has earned a good name as “president fishing village.”

The old houses of Xingping line its main streets. They are very photogenic. These houses are built with blue bricks. A lot of them have two stories with extended eaves. Classic wooden grille doors stand at the entrance to these old houses, and the views are very nice in Xingping’s old town.

But on this day, my family had little time to appreciate the old town like I did in my last journey to Guilin. We had about a half a day before our train ride back to Shenzhen North. We only had time to visit the Yellow Cloth Shoal on a boat ride, which features the cormorant as well. For more details, please visit my previous entry here.

The Gu Xitai Café

The Gu Xitai Café (Ancient Theater Café) lies right next to the Ancient Theater and it showcases some interesting drinks on its menu. This would be my family’s only opportunity to appreciate the old town. We sat down with our very last coffee in Guilin. The lady took a very, very long time to make six cups of coffee, and we barely could finish drinking before we must head off to the beer fish restaurant for lunch.

Liujie Beer Fish

Liujie Beer Fish is an award-winning beer fish restaurant that Xiaohuang introduced to us. There are literally a million beer fish restaurants in all of Guilin and this brand name is a badge of quality. Xiaohuang told us that it is very famous in China because the restaurant has been featured on a TV show.

As opposed to all other beer fish restaurants to which I have been, Liujie Restaurant (it means “Sister Liu”) prepares the fish pot right in front of us. After the stove has been set up, the waitress rolled out a cart. It contains the ingredients for the beer fish pot, the soul of which is the special house sauce. It was only from this experience that I learned the secrets of making beer fish.

The ingredients that go with the scale-less fish are tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, ginger, garlic, spring onions, with a special touch of a handful of perilla leaves. After heating up the pot, she first poured the oil of the sauce. She then used that oil to fry up the ingredients, and put in the fish. Finally, the non spicy packet of sauce that we ordered and of course, a can of beer. The fish took 10 minutes to cook.

We liked the beer fish very much. The sauce was really what made it so special. All other dishes were fantastic as well. We enjoyed the meal and so we bought some canned ground meat and a few beer fish sauce packets home.

We bid farewell to Xiaohuang as he dropped us off at the Yangshuo Station. A reminder that the Yangshuo High Speed Rail Station is in Xingping, not in Yangshuo.

This was my second trip to Guilin within the same year. In terms of key tourist sites, I think I have visited them all already. There are some sites of interest in Guilin, and I might consider going to the city again. So long, Guilin!