Chinese Food

Food has been mostly excellent – it is typically better not to ask what it is. Some of the more exotic things:

1. Sheep’s Stomach in a Spicy red pepper sauce (Very popular in Beijing)
2. Jelly fish with slivered cucumbers in a vinegar sauce
3. Donkey cold cuts with brown garlic sauce (actually quite good and flavorful) It has spawned the saying “That tastes like Donkey”
4. spicy peanuts with what looked like dried minnows
5. Squid (more chewy) and octopus (very tender and delicious)
6. Wild Rabbit – The meat tasted very good, but I didn’t prefer all of the bones. You typically pop a whole piece of meat into your mouth, chew it up then spit out the bones
7. Century Egg - cured egg - essentially controlled spoilage.

Some of the things we’ve seen, but not ordered (yet)

1. Frog
2. Turtle
3. Sea Cucumber
4. Fish Head (really big fish head with not much meat visible)
5. chicken with the head still on
6. Duck Tongue
   

Some standard things we’ve had that are really good:

1. Peking duck
2. whole crab – you kind of tear them apart with your hands and use the chopsticks to get the meat out
3. Shrimp/Prawns in red slightly hot sauce
4. whole fish – cooked whole with the skin – you kind of pull some meat off with your chopsticks
5. All kinds of mushrooms

We typically don't go to Chinese restaurants without a "Host" - as the ordering process is overwhelming. There seems to be a lot of negotiations that occur, all in Chinese. The typical ordering cycle takes 15-30 minutes.

We've also taken in some western (and south American) restaurants. The Wei Hai pub served very good fish and chips and currywurst with fries. I've had two chicken chimichangas at the Island bar that were outstanding. We ate at Pizza Hut in Beijing - the "American Special" plane pepperoni pizza tasted quite similar to a Pizza Hut pizza at home (not that that is a good thing :-) The Churrascaria we we ate at last night was mostly like a South American steak house back home - except the meat was served Chinese style - as soon as we sat down with our salads, they began piling all the different kinds of meat on our plate all at once. No red card/green card to control the flow of meat.