Dining Well in China

Well, we're back from our trip to China with our seven children and we had a fantastic time. I'm full of things I can't wait to share with you, but I'll start with formal dinners. Much to our surprise, when we arrived in China, my brother and his Chinese friends had planned a detailed itinerary for us, including many formal dinners instead of leaving us on our own as we had expected. We dined very well -including dinners at Yongfoo Elite in Shanghai and Ah Fat Abalone Forum inBeijing - and boy, did we learn a lot about dining in China.

First, a formal dinner is almost certain to be held in a private room, which actually adds a little ease to the situation - it becomes a private party -much like in someone's home. Dinner is served at a huge round table with a giant lazy susan in the middle. Cold dishes and salads are placed on the table first. Here's a trap: if you are deemed by the host to be the most honored person at the table, each dish will be turned in front of you as it arrives. No one will take anything from the table until you have taken some of that dish. If you don't realize this, all will patiently starve :-)

In the areas of China we travelled in, all formal dinners included shark fin soup. This is tricky to eat. Typically, you add a little vinegar from the bowl on the lazy susan and a few pieces of coriander leaves. It tastes like a wonderfully strong chicken noodle soup (heresy to my chinese friends :-). The "noodles" are the shark fin and are looked upon as a great delicacy. It helps to lift them onto your soup spoon using your chopsticks. Sometimes it is served over a candle fire, when you have eaten half of it, you should extinguish the candle if the waiter has not already done so, or it will be too hot to eat. This is one of the few things folks do seem to watch to see that you eat all of it - of course, since they may have paid $50-100 a bowl, I can see why. Two other extremely expensive delicacies you may be served are abalone (kind of like oyster, but milder), and bird's nest soup (Nothing like it sounds! Very sweet and tastes like coconut).

Oddly enough, don't be afraid to take children to a formal dinner. The Chinese are currently extremely indulgent of children and it is extremely unlikely your children will behave worse than the Chinese children present. They tolerate a lot.

Besides knowing these things, I found Chinese formal dinners to be more enjoyable and relaxed than American formal dinners. Taking portions from the common bowls, and therefore eating more of what you enjoy (do take very small portions to begin - there may be a *lot* of courses coming); the nearly universal kindness and friendliness we experienced, make it a great experience!