banquet

first of all, an unrelated note. do you know how in mulan there is that song at the beginning where she walks around carrying the cricket in the little tiny cage? well, today i was walking through the market, and i hear this cricket sound, and i think, "why is there a cricket in the market?" because crickets are in trees and stuff, and in the middle of market and shops where there are no plants of any kind. so i look around, and above the door of one of the shops, there is a cricket hanging a little plastic cage (like a minature bird cage)! it looked exactly like the little cricket in the cage in mulan, except not as cute, and the cage wasn't as nice looking, because it was plastic.

anyway, yesterday i got to go to my first fancy dinner in china. i've eaten out plenty of times, from buying food in the market, to eating in little noodle shops, to chinese restaurants around where we live, and also western restaurants in the city. but this was a celebration dinner in a 5 star hotel. a little different than any other meal i've had here yet. this was a time where i was thinking, "wow, i'm really in china." this wasn't a dinner with dishes chosen by foreigners or somewhere that we chose to eat, so it was definitely different in that way, as well as the fact that it was more formal.

there were 10-12 dishes chosen in advance. these came one at a time, and by the end there was so much extra! when the "lazy susan" in the middle of the table ran out of room, they would take away a dish that was mostly finished and bring it back on a smaller dish (i've never seen this done at other restaurants--usually they just cram all the dishes on there somehow) so we could finish what was left if we wanted, but still leaving room for the next dishes that were coming.

the important people at the dinner would come around to each table individually, everyone would stand up, and they would offer a toast.

here are the shrimp that i mentioned in a previous post. these guys' antennas are much more reserved though.
very yummy! but messy to eat! the chinese guys at our table could pick one up with their chopsticks, bite off the head and spit it out, and the basically suck the insides out and spit out any part that they didn't want to eat (like if they got the outside shell in their mouth by accident). it sounds gross, but they did it in such a talented way that it didn't look gross at all. all the foreigners at the table had to peel them by hand. the first one i picked up, when i took the head off, juice squirted me right in the eye! the 11 year old at the table informed me (afterwards) that sometimes they will squirt you. =) it was one thing to peel these very messily where i had them before and eat them, but at a fancy dinner it was kind of weird, so i didn't eat very many, sadly.

don't let your first impressions of this picture be what you think of this dish:
this fish was AMAZING. i'm not huge fan of regular fish. it usually has bones, and most fish tastes the same to me (but i love scallops, squid, shrimp, crab, and other seafood). but this fish was awesome. the sauce it was in was amazing, there were no bones, and it was so tender and soft...very good. there was also a scallop dish that i didn't take a picture of that was excellent.

this dish was an awesome surprise! see the ping pong balls?
us weird foreigners called them ping pong balls because that's what they looked like. they were pretty much perfect spheres and exactly the size of a ping pong ball. picking them up with chopsticks was a trick, but not too bad. inside though it was like mochi, for those of you who know what that is, and in the very center was something a little sweet, but not too much. it was perfect! very yummy.

there is a apparently a saying among the foreigners here about banquets like this. instead of "it's not over until the fat lady sings," the saying is: "it's not over until the fruit comes."
this was the last dish, but by the time it came we were too full to eat much of it!

and since C and i inadvertently dressed to match each other that night, here is a picture of us: