Nov 8 A Dining Experience

Be prepared – if you don’t like food, don’t read this one.

We were on our own for dinner, so a Chinese colleague organized an excursion to a very interesting restaurant. I think that he checked with all of the local people to find the one that was the most different. It was only for the UCLA and Lawrence Berkeley Lab people. (Also the ones who are the most adventurous eaters – and we know that Chuck and I definitely qualify for that!)

The women (Lucille, Maria and I) were told that the van would pick us up at 5:20. Then it was changed to 5:10 and finally at 5:05 we were called and told it was here. The van took us to the university to pick up the physicists and then we all went to the restaurant. It was 25 miles through horrendous traffic to get there. We were all sure that we were lost, but the driver knew where he was going.

In the middle of nowhere, out of the dark of fields, appeared a place that looked like a Las Vegas Casino. We were greeted at the door by young women in long blue evening dresses with white rabbit shrugs. When I first saw them, I thought that our group might be sadly underdressed. Inside it was a huge, huge area with trees and bushes and streams and pools with fish.



The food and drink servers had on roller skates.

Every table was surrounded with bushes so that everyone had their own private eating bower. We had a private room (with bathroom attached.)


First we were invited to go look at the food choices. This meant a hike through the “woods” to a large area with many tanks of live fish, shrimp, crabs, lobsters, shell fish, and wall displays of all of the kinds of dishes that were available. Chuck estimated that there were 300 dishes. Each party had a personal order taker, who took the notes on a palm pilot. There was much discussion between Nu and our waiter. We had to wait until they were finished, because we were not sure that we could find our way back to our room.

Nu explained that this restaurant had food styles from 5 different areas – but he had narrowed it down to 3. We were going to have delicacies of the season and the area.

We started with duck tongues.


We were having 4 cold dishes – so after the tongues we had green salad,


Venison tendons with carrots and scallions They were a little gelatinous.


Spicy tofu


And a cucumber salad.

Then we moved on to the hot dishes.

A soup with with mushrooms and dried dates cooked inside a papaya, (my personal favorite)

Hairy crabs – I got the impression that these were really special and seasonal – but were a lot of trouble to eat.


After the crabs we all were given fresh towels and plates. (We really were a mess after these.)

A whole steamed fish with bones that were to be eaten.


Bacon on baby bamboo

A hot pot fish


Shrimp 3 ways – steamed, fried and live in a soy sauce that killed them (known as “drunken shrimp”. These were still wriggling when they came to the table – but stopped after awhile. Chuck did get one that revived on his plate and he ended up with soy sauce all over.




Mushrooms and goose with baby bok choy


A noodle dish with an incredible number of chilies in it (all those red things are chili peppers.


Then we moved on to the desserts. A fruit plate with watermelon, tomatoes, grapes and fresh dates,


Pancakes stuffed with bean paste


Sweet noodle bird’s nests and dumplings.


All of this (and lots of beer and tea) cost us $28 each!!!

Chuck is planning to return when we are living in Hefei. He thinks that now that he knows the routine, he could manage to order an interesting group of dishes.

We took taxis back to the hotel. We took a more direct route back which only took 20 minutes.

We read a little while so that we could digest a bit before going to sleep.