Eating in Yanji is one of the genuine pleasures of visiting northeastern China. The Korean food here is not the sanitised restaurant version found in Beijing or Seoul — it is the Hamgyong-dialect cooking of the community that has been eating this way in these mountains for five generations. Cold buckwheat noodles in icy broth (naengmyeon), Korean barbecue cooked over charcoal, ginseng chicken soup, fermented kimchi made from northeastern Chinese cabbage varieties, and the various cold vegetable side dishes that accompany every meal.