food - beijing style

Well, I know that eating over here is pretty different to back home, but last night was definitely a new one for me. Eating over here is generally a communal thing anyway, instead of everyone getting their own thing and just eating that you get a load of dishes, put them in the center of the table ane everyone helps themselvs. If you have a big party (5 or 6 ppl), you get a round table with a glass turntable which all the dishes go on, and you just twirl it around (slowly of cours) til the dish you want is in front of you. I've done it before in dublin when I was out with Vicky & the lads in "real" chinese restaurants (as in, you don't order by a number :-P), and of course when I was in Hong Kong 18 months ago, but it's been so long that it was still a bit of a novelty when I got here.

At least one thing about that tho was that at least the food came out to you cooked! Last night though, we went out for a more "traditional" Beijing dish: hotpot. Here, ther's a little gas cooker on the table and you get a big-ass dish of "soup" boiling away on it. Then, you get a few big platters of little rolls of thinly sliced meat (lamb, chicken, beef) and few plates of veg, which you dip in the pot until it's cooked. Takes a bit of getting used to!



The one we had had two parts to it, on side was the "hot and spicy" side and one was the milder side. I'll let you guess from the pic which was which :-)