Oriental Food as an Art form

It is inevitable that ones interest in an art form, especially when exotic, e.g. Japanese/Chinese, will lead you into the realms of their culinary arts, even if it is only out of politeness as a guest. 

The first was a visit to a Japanese restaurant in London. Wonderful stuff beautifully presented, and not at all cheap. Following this we then sorted out Japanese restaurant wherever we went - not an easy task as they hide, seldom survive more than a year and never seem to be situated outside very large cities. 

When China came on our horizon, we (wrongly) assumed that like all goods Brits, we knew Chinese Cuisine pretty well. Although Sue favours Indian and the more spicy foods of the world, we agreed that a couple of weeks of Chinese food would not be to much of a trial. 

Now Shanghai is a great city, the waterfront at night a treasure of old and super modern architecture. Visiting the Jade Buddha and ancient tea house just about knocks your socks off. 

Having done all this and not wanting to see more that day, four of us left the group and hired a taxi back to the hotel, 75 minute drive through the back streets (I can recommend this as a real-time treat for the more adventurous).  The Taxi fare came to £3.50 for the four of us, and he would not take a tip!!! I asked if we could dine but not in the Europeanised restaurant. Changed, cleaned and hungry, we met in the foyer and were guided to a huge restaurant.  

As we approached the noise hit us like a wall, it sounded much as though all Shanghai were not only eating in there but having family disputes, singsongs and smashing the cutlery. As the doors opened a mass of friendly oriental faces turned and smiled at us, grinning with what may have been pleasure.  The top gun, dressed in a sharp dinner jacket and huge bow tie, ushered us into a private room, Shame I thought, you had to think, talking above the din would have been impossible. "What would you like" he asked, we decided that the food should be a surprise and asked that he choose the dishes with as many local as possible. 

Now against all odds this was a brilliant move on our part, he was thrilled with the concept and produced two young ladies to wait upon us. They giggled throughout the whole meal and kept producing litre bottles of the local beer (Twelve in all), the food kept arriving, most of which none of us had ever seen before. Flavours ranged from exquisite to obscene, one chicken had been roasted whole then chopped and served - the snag was that all the bone in the poor beast had turned into razor sharp shards. 

The Grand finale happened when our top gun entered with a platter, "Chips" he said grinning, obviously pleased with this triumph of knowledge that no European could survive a meal without fried potatoes. The Platter, large enough to stand on, looked a little odd, the chips were the right shape but were very pale, they also glittered as though frosted. My Duty by this time was to taste any dish that the others were concerned over, odd how one lets this sort of thing creep into your life. So I thanked our man and lifted several 'Chips' onto a bowl with my chop sticks, then popped one in.  Have any of you tasted par boiled cold chip potato sprinkled with sugar?, eeeeeeeemmmmm. 

A great evening and adventure, cost £24 all in, not bad eh? The following week we were in the local Museum at Xian (see photo below) when a friend came past and asked how well I had liked the food - "Great" I replied, yes it looks like it he said and then added "Porky". 

Greyman