Brazilian Barbecue

May 18, 2007 Friday

Another quiet day in Hefei. Went to Carrefore (4 flights) in the morning, made lunch for “Chunk”, took a nap in the afternoon. Speaking of chunk – I think that the many flights that we climb every day is allowing us to maintain our weight, even though we eat lots. I know that my hips and thighs are thinner, but my tummy is the same. I should do as many crunches as steps – but I don’t.

Chuck burned a hole in his pocket the other day, so I took the pants to the Laundry lady to have them fixed. (4 flights) I will miss her – she sews up shirts, sews buttons back on and now, sews up the pocket.

The people here have pets. Several people walk their dogs and there are quite a few cats. One neighbor’s cat had kittens. Everyone stops to check on them as they go by. Right now they are at the cute stage where they are pouncing on imaginary things. Here they are nursing.

Every time we do a long sojourn away from home, there is something that I want to kiss when I get home - the thing that I have missed the most while living in a strange environment. The first time in France, it was a tie between a real shower and my appliances. In Japan, it was enough electricity that I could turn on all of the heaters and a light and not blow a fuse. Do you want to guess what it will be on this trip? I’ll let you know at the end.

Now, that we have been in China a month, we decided to go to the Sofitel hotel to their Brazilian Barbecue restaurant. That’s right – Brazilian Barbecue at a French hotel in China. It should be interesting.

Every restaurant in China has at least one greeter at the door. (Meng Cheng had 5 on Mother’s Day.) Sofitel had 3 at the hotel door and another phalanx in the back of the lobby at the restaurant that was set up for a banquet. Oh, oh, perhaps we won’t be able to eat here. A nice man in a suit (not one of the greeters – they are all lovely young women) came up and asked if he could help us. We asked about the BB restaurant and he escorted us down the hall to the correct place.

BB in China consists of all of the grilled meats on skewers brought to your table by a server and then sliced onto your plate. You have small tongs to grasp the slice, so it doesn’t just plop onto your plate and splash. They had duck, ox tongue, beef, pineapple, several kinds of sausages, chicken, pork, bacon, and skirt steak.

To go with all of this meat was a Chinese buffet - lots and lots of vegetable dishes, onion and vegetable soups, dumplings, salad greens, pasta salad, and to top it off a dessert buffet. The desserts looked and tasted like the UCLA dessert buffet - not wonderful, but very pretty.

There was one non-Chinese guy in a gaucho costume, but he spent most of his time behind the counter in the food prep area. The regular servers were in just regular pants and shirts with aprons.

We ate with knives, forks and spoons for the first time since we have been here! Everyone complements us on our chopstick dexterity, but trust me, we are much better with forks and knives.

Each group had a small paper cow with a green side and a red side. When you didn’t want any more meat, you turned the red side up. We didn’t feel the need to stuff ourselves to get our money’s worth, because we knew that it would still be cheap by our standards. It turned out that it was about the same cost as the night before with 5 people. So about 2 1/2 times a Chinese meal.

Big hotels are great – you just walk out the front door and they call the next cab in line to come and get you. I am good at flagging taxis though. Visiting New York was good training. (4 flights)

24 was on the episode of 10pm to 11pm. The season is coming to a close. We will miss it.

12 flights today