Zhúlóng yī lóng, yángròu yī lóng; bā dào shí’èr yuán, lǎojiē yī lóng. — One bamboo steamer, one steamer of mutton; eight to twelve yuan, one basket on the old street.
Fengjie geger (奉节格格, Fèngjié Gége) is the county’s breakfast institution: the little bamboo steamers of coated, steamed meat that eastern Chongqing shares with its neighbours, sold at 8–12 yuan a basket from the old street’s shops. The registers are the classic three — mutton, fat intestine and rib (羊肉、肥肠、排骨), each coated in a spiced rice flour and steamed in its own small bamboo tube — and the dish’s home is the street: bought standing, eaten from the tube, finished before work.
The steaming vessel is the method. The small bamboo tube (竹笼) concentrates the steam over a thin layer of meat, cooks the rice coating into a crust rather than a sauce, and lends its own faint fragrance to the coating — the same logic as the region’s other bamboo-steamed dishes, at a scale that fits one person’s hunger. The coating is the spice carrier: chilli, Sichuan pepper and the local aromatics worked into the rice flour that wraps each piece.
The old street’s shops are the address, and the correct order is one basket per person plus a shared one for the table — the tubes are small and the locals eat more than visitors expect. Mutton is the local favourite, fat intestine the connoisseur’s, rib the safe one. The trade is morning; the good shops sell out.
flowcloud would say that the county’s poem city rhymes in bamboo — eight yuan a tube, three registers, and the old street as the press.
Where to find it: the county seat’s morning shops — Zhao Pangzi at 232 Kuizhou Road (behind the Guohao appliance store) and Yuanyuanmei at 5 Renhe Street (a 1987 shop moved up from the old town) both steam the baskets through the morning; 8–12 yuan a basket, and the good shops sell out. All checked October 2026.
Words and Names
格格 gége — the small bamboo-steamed meat dishes of eastern Chongqing · 竹笼 zhúlóng — the bamboo steamer tube · 粉蒸 fěnzhēng — rice-flour steaming, the method · 羊肉 yángròu / 肥肠 féicháng / 排骨 páigǔ — mutton, fat intestine, rib, the three registers