Did you know that fortune cookies are as American as apple pie and the Fourth of July? Seriously, they don’t exist in China. For that matter, we never saw a single serving of General Tso’s Chicken or Happy Family. Not to worry. We never went hungry as we criss-crossed the country from Shanghai to Xi’an to Beijing to Hong Kong. In fact, over the course of at least eight lunches or dinners served at as many different restaurants, I don’t think we ever had a dish repeated, except rice. The most consistent element in each restaurant was the giant table with the giant lazy susan center, and for the duration of our visit, nine hungry adults with an occasional student or two. It was all fantastic, and even Bob, who is not known for his love of Chinese food, was wielding chopsticks pretty well.
The variety of food was amazing. Since it was New Year’s, we had one meal that was nothing but a succession of 18 different dumplings, since dumplings are a traditional holiday dish. We had a Peking duck dinner, which is a somewhat ritualized and special occasion meal involving little wrappers and hoisin sauce. It's similar to moo shu pork but using duck. There were memorable fish dishes. Unusual soups, mostly variations on egg drop. Some wonderful kernels of corn that had been fried to a delicate and memorable stage of crispy perfection. And our memorable home-cooked hutong meal (see separate post). A few restaurants poured complimentary glasses of sweet red wine, almost like a sherry, but in our crowd of nine "old folks," the beverage of choice was beer--Tiger, Tsing Tao, or whatever local beer was made in each city.
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