Everyone warned me about Chinese New Year in Nanjing. I listened, sure, but I guess I couldn’t believe that it would be That hard to find food. The reality is, that cometh the New Year break, for two weeks a city of several million turns into the proverbial post-nuclear ghost-town. Think ‘On the Beach’. Supermarkets stay open, but everyone else battens the hatches and vanishes. You could put a scrum down in the middle of three-lane main roads normally chocked with vehicles and not have so much as a scooter screetching at you.

It was on a desperate food-foraging mission  one evening over New Year, that I came across Yonheking. It’s a kind of spartan chain-style eatery, but with the big plus as one of the very few places that stayed open over the whole break. The best deal there is probably a bowl of chicken mulch and rice. – for 12 RMB. The rice, chicken, and a little salad come separately, and before you mix it seems like the chicken will run out well before the pile of rice. But never-fear, it’s all perfectly calculated! The mix makes a nice  filing meal, and the price (about $2.50) is probably the best deal in town.

Yonheking is on a corner of Zhujiang, directly south of South East University.