烧饼 Shaobing

I finally tried some of the Tianjin shaobings a couple days ago. I saw a line of 4 or 5 people lining up in front of a 烧饼 sign, so I lined up too. I asked the older woman in front of me what flavors were the tastiest, and, unfortunately, I only understood about half of what she said. She had a heavy Tianjin accent, so all I could catch was something about baiguo 百果 being good. I couldn't catch what she said about the beef shaobing, so I skipped it just in case (meat is usually really skimpy and not very good in China, so I've learned by now). I also paid attention to what several ppl ahead were ordering, and they kept saying something like "juner." So I went up and ordered 1 baigo and one "juner," mimicking the way they seemed to say it. I don't know if the attendant really understood me or not, but she nodded and put two shaobing in a bag for me. When I tasted the two, one turned out to be filled with colorful candied fruit (like the kind you put in fruitcake). I guess baiguo means hundreds of candied fruits. The other mysterious "juner" one was a date filling. Not the Mediterranean dates, but more like Chinese dates. The outer pastry was very crisp and flakey, and they reminded me of the Chew Chow taro-filled cakes we get for Mid-Autumn and Chinese New Year's. The shaobing are really greasy though, because lard is the secret to the flakey crust and smooth, creamy fillings. Shaobing, like mooncake, don't really fall into my favorite foods list.