Spicy Chicken

After an evening teaching I was taken to another restaurant - this time a spicy chicken restaurant. We sat around a small round table and in the middle over a gas burner was a big pan, and the waitress put a big pile of cabbage and raw chicken meat which was cut up with scissors. The chicken was covered in a red spicy chili sauce. Also in it were small sausages made of rice with cheese and other filling. (One of the guys teased me that it was caterpillar larvae!)

We were also served with seaweed soup (which was very tasty) and bowls of vegetables. When the chicken was cooked we helped ourselves and threw in addition vegetables including garlic, and sesame leaves.

When the chicken and cabbage was almost eaten the waitress added rice and spinach to the mix, and we stirred it and ate that too. We drank iced tea.

All very health food. Delicious.

The Hot Pot

Under the cherry blossom

Our group at the table.

Steam from the hot pot hides our birthday boy.

The cave.

On Friday nights we go to dinner somewhere in Shaoxing. Sometimes there are 12 foreign teachers, and other times there are just 4 or 5 of us. Last Friday night it was pouring with rain, and there were supposed to be 7 of us going to a Hot Pot Restaurant. The French couple got lost and we didn't see them.

Seven of us arrived at the restaurant which was built to resemble a cave. We entered via a staircase which had cement stalagmites and stalactites built into it, and when inside we could see cave like structures as well as big tree trunks all created with cement.

The restaurant is very popular and was very crowded and busy, so we had to wait for a table for a short while. Eventually a table was vacated, it was cleaned and we sat down. I am always complaining that there is no wine on any drinks menu - as I do not like beer. The beer is a very "watered down" version of what the Aussies like to drink anyway. One of our group spotted "white wine" on the menu. It was very cheap - so curiously we ordered some for me. I have no idea what it was - it had a vague wine taste, but it resembled a beer. Anyway, for me, better than a Coke or Fanta.

We ordered - thanks to some students who had translated the menu for us as we had to mark on a sheet the food that we wished to eat.

Soon a waiter arrive and put the "soup" in the hole in the middle of the table, our food arrived. All on a big tray and each item we had ordered was on a little plate or in a little bowl. We were given three "soup ladles" and chopsticks and when the soup was bubbling we dropped our food in to cook, and fished it out again with our chopsticks or the ladle.

It was quite an experience and as often happens here we had ordered more food than we could eat. An interesting way to eat. And so inexpensive too. No wonder it was so popular. So there we were in a cave under cherry blossom, eating our meal.

Chinglish? Maybe.............

I carry around little note books and put in thoughts, words, ideas, details etc. In my unpacking and setting up of my "new" apartment I found one of my little books, and flicking through the pages came across a list of "Chinglish" - I think these were found when we travelled around Shanghai, Suzhou and other parts several months ago.

Obviously they were on the menu at one or more restaurants.

"Spicey yellow croaker" - Peppered yellow frog?

"Vegetable kidney in XO sauce" - Kidney beans?

"Braised cuttlefish in formented bean curd sauce" - formented?

"Dried meat floss" - Good for your teeth?

"Fried chicken ball with asparagus" Do chickens have balls?

"Saute loin pork with chilli and been sauce" - a has been?

"Fried vegetable with Galic" - OK, a typo maybe.

Restaurant area

After our day at Houshan and climbing the mountain, we boarded the bus and returned to the city and were taken to a fascinating place for lunch at a very old Chinese place, where much of the old village and canals were still being used. It was fascinating - the restaurant featured traditional Chinese food - and we were lucky to have some of the Chinese teachers with us to explain what it was we were eating. What a marvellous feast! Afterward we wandered around the grounds - we saw close up a shop where there was a wide variety of fish and other water animals that we believe were to be used in the restaurant. I'm OK with fresh fish, but seeing frogs and turtles still living and making their way around a tank not knowing that their days of life are soon to be over and they would be someone's dinner. The complex is quite near a canal with larger water transport, and apparently a boat that tours the canals. We must do that one day. But it started to rain again, so we were glad to board the bus and return to the college. It had been a wonderful, but exhausting day.