No General Tsao's Chicken Here

This is going to be the story about a typical Chinese restaurant experience.  Many of these points we've covered before...I know.  But this is also an excuse to share some pictures of food.  And I totally lose what little discipline I have when thinking of food.

The typical Chinese restaurant is different to a Western restaurant.  Western retaurants are geared toward providing tables for couples and foursomes and the occasional larger party.  In China, the restaurants are geared toward 8, 15, 20 or 30 people at a time.  There is a tradition of celebrating both business and family events at restaurants. And the tradition includes inviting a lot of people.  So restaurants invest in private rooms for seating of large groups.  You can get a table for two at a Chinese restaurant.  But you will be an exception and not the rule.

So, within a restaurant a typical private room has a round table or maybe two.  Each table can seat 12 people...plus or minus.  Seating is important.  The seat facing the door is for the host.  The host has two duties, the first being to order the food for the entire group and the second being to pay the bill for everyone.  Traditionally, the seats to right and left of the host are for honored guests.  In truth, though, as long as your not the one paying it doesn't much matter where you sit.

The hosts orders the meal for all the guests.  There is an art to this that I do not completely understand.  The rule of thumb is that you should order a number of dishes that equals the number of guests plus two.  So with twelve people at the table you would order about fourteen dishes.  You've got to mix them up...about half being cold dishes (e.g. appetizers) and the other half being main courses.  Within the appetizers and main courses you need to assure variety.  Avoid ordering the same type of meat in two dishes.  Assure both seafood and landfood meats. Balance the spicy with the not-so-spicy.  Make sure there are some vegatables.  And the truly sophisticated know how to balance the Yin foods and the Yang foods.

Each table has a round, glass lazy susan at its center.  As each dish arrives it is placed by the waiter/waitress on the perimeter of the lazy susan.  The lazy susan spins and each person removes a small portion from the common dish to their own plate to eat.  The cold dishes come first.  As more and more dishes are added to the lazy susan, the more variety there is to choose from.  You have to spin the lazy susan so that the food you want is in reachable distance. You also must take care not commit the faux pas of spinning the food while someone else is trying to serve themselves.

You use your chopsticks to transfer food from the common dish (on the lazy susan) to your own plate.  You normally use the same chopsticks that you are eating with.  This is the part that surprises some westerners and totally freaks out the more fastidious ones.  It's like the double-dipping episode of Seinfeld.  The chopsticks go from peoples' mouths to a common, central dish.  You share your food and you share your bacteria.  It's a communal eating style that harkens back to a time before the microbe theory of diseases was understood.  And you know, it's fine by me.  The modern world is too germophobic.  There's probably fewer germs transferred by chopsticks than by shaking hands.
The cold dishes come out first and then the simple, hot dishes and soups.  As the meal progresses, the more complex and expensive dishes come out toward the end.  The lazy susan becomes crowded and the waitress/waiter must be creative.  Dishes with small amounts remaining are transferred to smaller bowls.  Plates are stacked. if necessary.  A few dishes are completely consumed, but not many.  If you go to a Chinese dinner, then do not feel obligated to eat everything.  You can't eat everything.  And if you did everything, then the host would order more.  The mark of a great feast is that some food will go to waste.

The last dish to come is the fruit dish....always containing watermelon and sometimes containing cantelope or pumpkin or other fruits.  The host does not need to order this....it is implied and required for every meal.   Once the fruit is finished then the bill can be paid.  But the host must call for the bill....it is not brought out automatically as in a U.S. restaurant.  It is impolite to leave the table until the host calls for the bill and the bill is paid.

Following are photos of some typical dishes.  The text below always refers to the photo above.

A dish of steamed, spicy marinated chicken feet.  China loves chicken feet.  There is not much to them but skin and bone...but Asian cooking prizes the gelatinous and chewy texture of skin.  Urban folklore says that shiploads of chicken feet arrive everyday from the U.S.

Deep fried whitebait fish.  I don't eat the heads, though some folks do.  These are deep fried and crunchy and have a strong taste of burnt canola oil.  I normally go lightly on them, because the taste tends to linger in your mouth until the next day.

Salty duck eggs.  I suppose this comes from traditional method of preserving eggs.  They are definitely salty.  One slice from the plate above is tastey.  Two slices makes you thirsty.  Three slices will cause you to drink from a firehose.

Soft shelled turtle sauteed with onions and radish.  This is one turtle.  The green oval on the top of the pile is the turtle's head.  (Heads are important to include in the serving for the restaurant to prove that you got the whole animal that you ordered.)  Turtle is actually very good.  The soft shell is covered in gelatinous skin.  (China loves gelatinous.)  The meat of the feet and the ribs is very tasty when prepared with the right spices.

Steamed split fish.  This is a simple dish, but yet delicious.  You pull the flesh from the fish with your chopsticks.  With luck, you leave the bones behind.

Fish in gravy sauce.  If done well, it can be as good or better than the steamed fish.  But it is easy for the restaurant to screw up the gravy or the spices.  But even at it's worst, it is very good.  The biggest surprise, to me, is the quality and variety of freshwater fish dishes in Suzhou.

Fish heads in gravy with radish.  Fish heads are great because the bring a lot of flavor and a surprising amount of meat (if you don't mind fighting through the bones for it).  The radish is the Diakon, or large white Asian radish.  It doesn't have the strong flavor or heat of a globe radish.  In dishes like this, the radish fills the role normally filled by a potato or some other bland starch.

Finally, this is just a photo of the moon shining over YangCheng lake.