My First Chinese Banquet

My very first time traveling outside the U.S. was in the summer of 2005 and I traveled alone. Yes, it was a bit unnerving not knowing what to expect, never having been on an airplane for more than 4 or 5 hours, never having dealt with any country’s immigration and customs, and traveling to a place where English is not the first language - China. I attended a conference for a week in Shanghai and then another conference for a week in Singapore. Although I traveled by myself while in China I did meet up with researchers that I had previously been introduced to who are now very good work acquaintances. In Singapore I only knew of our foreign staff and did not interact with them at all during this trip.

Among various events and excursions during the conference in Shanghai what I remember most is attending my first Chinese banquet and that is what I want to share in this blog. This was a classic banquet arranged for the 500+ attendees of the conference complete with many large round tables set up with the large lazy susans for sharing food. I lost count of the number of courses and the number of dishes in all those courses so what follows is a partial accounting. The menu was all in Chinese and many of the items our Chinese friends were unable to translate. All night I simply ate one or two bites of nearly everything I dared to eat. I should also go ahead and tell you that since we were all American or Chinese American at our table we did not partake in the normal drinking rituals. I have had the “pleasure” of that many times since but only saw it across the room on this first trip.

It began with eight cold dishes including rice noodles, something similar to water chestnuts, green beans, smoked fish, smoked eel, duck tongue, jelly fish, shrimp, and a soup. I was doing really well until I got to the duck tongue. Yes folks I actually took one bite and managed to swallow a piece of duck tongue – ewwwww!! Who knew ducks had tongues and they served them whole so they looked like tongue and were about 1.5 inches long. Something crunchy like cartilage was inside and it completely grossed me out when I bit the end of the tongue off but I swallowed it. Ick! After that I was more hesitant of the food. I have issues with texture and that has been the hardest thing for me to overcome when it comes to Asian food. I tried to eat a piece of jelly fish but ended up discretely spitting it into my napkin to avoid a gag reflex. And then was afraid to try the shrimp because I could see that the shell was still on and I had no idea whether to eat the shell or how in the world I was supposed to remove shell with chopsticks. I have since learned that many of my seasoned fellow travels avoid items like the whole shrimp in shell simply because they have not found a polite way to eat them.  I also did not try the soup and learned latter it was a fish soup with shark fins and mushrooms. If I had known it was shark fin I might have tried it but this was right after spitting out jelly fish and I wasn't sure I could handle another funky texture right away.

I should mention at this point that we were eating with the decorative ceramic chopsticks, the really slick, round ones. The kind that someone who has not used chopsticks extensively has no chance at all in being able to pick up slippery things like noodles. My boss once told me to buy a set and practice picking up shelled peanuts and that when I could do that I would have perfected my skills enough not to be embarrassed at banquets. I still have not perfected this skill but do now know my limits both for what I can eat and what I can pick up and control with chopsticks. I am now proud to turn down forks when they are offered because I am American.

After the cold dishes the main entree dishes were served one at a time. First was large prawns in a sticky sauce which was very good but I am sure the Chinese were horrified by us Americans using the soup spoon to try and break the shell off before eating them. Scallops with sautéed celery came next and was appreciated for being both tasty and easy to eat. This was followed by a brown rice mold with pieces of some very expensive shell fish that no one could give an English name to. I had the rice but skipped the unnamable fish. Then came beef tips and onions served in a basket made of fried noodles, also very good. Then a couple of items I could not bring myself to try simply because I did not know how to handle: whole fish and steamed whole crabs (no one but the true Chinese at the table tackled the whole crab). This was followed by something we first thought was a whole cooked turtle but it was pieces of pork and turtle meat under a large mushroom decorated to look like turtle. I had a piece of one of the meats and liked it. Next up was another rice mold which was decorated like the yin yang sign with black and white rice over a sweet bean curd which was not bad. Then some sort of paste in a pastry which I didn't try and finally the fruit (watermelon) which is always served last.

I know I did not make a note of everything so there were easily another five or six dishes not mentioned. As I said earlier we did not take part in the normal drinking festivities so I did not get to try traditional Chinese liquor Maotai on this trip. Instead I had red wine called "Great Wall" and would say it is a red table wine and not too bad. And I tried the Shanghai beer Reeb and thought it tasted a lot like a Heineken.

Now I will try to describe the entertainment which was taking place during most of the meal. It started with dancing lions like a lion taming act with a man in funny face costume making two lions dance and get up on stands. The “lions” each consisted of two men inside traditional costumes. Then came the ballerina followed by what I would call the "Chinese Dixie chicks". My travel notes state: “they certainly are the new Chinese woman who has probably had surgery to look more European”. Two played electric fiddles and one played electric bass and they shimmied around so much I was would guess the music wasn't being played live. It sounded like synthesized bluegrass with a Chinese twist. Next up were the acrobats, a man and little girl. She balanced bowls on her head and feet as he held her up in all kind of poses. They were followed by the magician and I was tickled to see it was a woman in a tux with a male assistant decked out in sequins! Her trick was to take a fishing line and shake it like she was fishing and suddenly reel in a live fish. She started with a little line and little fish and worked her way up to a rope and a very large fish. And they were real gold fish because as the assistant put them into water and you could see them wiggling around. Then came the traditional face mask dance which was a very masculine character wearing a face mask holding a fan. When this person would whip the fan or twirl with their cap, the mask would change and at the end when the mask was removed we were all surprised to see it was a woman. Last up was the Chinese band who mainly played American jazz and even played New York, New York.

I have not attended a banquet of this size since but every nice meal I have been treated to in China has consisted of the large, round table with large, round lazy susan and many, many courses of food. 

One major mistake I made as new traveler was not taking a real camera to the banquet.  Here are some horrible cell phone shots.

 

What Not to Eat In Asia

One of the primary rules of travel can be one of the hardest rules to follow: don’t eat non-local food. What I mean is that for the most part the best food will be the native food not their interpretation of your food. 

Best example of this is the Mexican restaurant Casa Loca in Seoul, Korea. For some reason the people we visit think that it will be a welcome change for us weary travelers and that it will remind us of home. I have seen reviews of really good authentic Mexican restaurants in Korea but this place is not it. Their Korean interpretation of Mexican food is so not good. 

Likewise beware of ordering classic American dishes (or any regional dish other than the local) from any non-chain restaurant. It will not taste like home. It will taste how the locals want the dish to taste with the ingredients they have available to them.

There are exceptions and the key to this is when the owner/chef is from the place of the food origin, has access to appropriate ingredients, and has not modified things for the local palate. There is a wonderful Italian restaurant, Pomodoro, within walking distance of the Caravelle hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. But it is good because the guy who owns it is direct from Italy doing it all his way not some modified Vietnamese interpretation of Italian food (we actually quizzed him about his recipes and whether the food was tweaked for Vietnamese palette before we ate there).

And there are some decent “almost like home” options but you will find great disagreement among travelers about whether these items are really good or not. Hamburger/cheeseburger at nicer brand name hotels can be hit or miss (Westin, Ritz, Intercontinental). After a week of Asian food maybe their version of a cheeseburger is just want you need and often works just fine for me. For my boss, a major hamburger snob who is critical as to what toppings are precisely allowed, this is always a sore disappointment. He rightly points out that the meat has more of a meatloaf texture than hamburger texture. But fries are hardly ever messed up at these major hotel chains and as such are an almost always perfect and very satisfying reminder of home. 

And there will come a time when you cannot stand one more Asian dish no matter how good it is and you need something, anything that reminds you of home. So beyond an okay burger at the hotel what can you do?

Chain Restaurants? Starbucks and other coffee meccas are a definite yes. McDonalds, etc. well, yes it can taste pretty much the same as back in the U.S. but I desperately avoid in U.S. so why would I go there overseas? The few times I have had my arm twisted to eat at some sort of U.S. fast food based chain overseas I have gotten sick shortly after. Could be coincidence or timing of trip in general but the two times I have been really sick both of those times I had eaten at a fast food chain within a day of the “event”. “Moderate to higher end” chains seem to do better. I have had decent meals at both Outback Steakhouse and Tony Roma’s in Korea.

Pizza in Asia? It depends. Pizza Hut in Jinan, China was just weird. The menu had nearly everything but pizza and then a small section on pizza. Keep in mind that cheese is not a staple of Asian diets. The toppings were also tailored for the Asian palate. So what we ordered was kind of like home but just off enough to really taste wrong. On the other hand, California Pizza Kitchen in Hong Kong was just like being at one in U.S. and tasted just like home. 

Of course Hong Kong seems to be an exception in general. One of the best Thai restaurants I have ever eaten at outside of Thailand is in Hong Kong - Sweet Thai Basil located in Harbor City on Canton Road. 

In general it is best, especially the more remote you get, to stick with local cuisine. And let a local order for you! Give them some basic input on your extreme like and dislikes and then be open minded. When you do need an American fix – be careful what you pick!