Sweet-Sour Pork (Guobaorou)

Yanji guobaorou is thin slices of pork loin coated in starch batter and deep-fried golden and crisp, then tossed in a sugar-vinegar sauce to glaze, a sweet-sour fried dish that is crisp outside and tender within, the representative Korean-ethnic take on a Northeast classic.

Guobaorou is a signature of Northeast cuisine, and in Yanji the Korean-ethnic kitchen lightened its glaze and thinned, crisped the meat, pairing it with cold noodles to become one of the most characteristic pairings on the Yanji table.

Fried to order and eaten hot, the crisp sugared shell gives way to tender meat; usually ordered alongside cold noodles, one cold and one hot, one crisp and one refreshing, the most common pairing at any Yanji restaurant.

The clear sugar-vinegar glaze, the thin and crisped meat, and its role as the hot partner to cold noodles are what make Yanji guobaorou distinctive.