Entries: Food

A good meal...an unfair price?

On this last day of our trip, we’re regretting that we didn’t learn about this restaurant much earlier. 

Michael Koliska discovered this place a couple of days ago, and I ate there for the first time last night.  It was so good—and much of our contingent agrees—that a group of us ate there again tonight.  It sits smack in the middle of the Beijing Institute of Technology campus, amid a group of similar small eateries and stores.  You could call it a Chinese Campustown.

Here is a bit of what we ordered:

Four entrees (a fifth arrived soon after) plus two Cokes, a bottle of water and a 600ml bottle of beer.  Tea was complimentary, and Chinese custom discourages tipping.  The tab: 43 yuan.  At today’s exchange rate: $5.62.  That’s $1.41 per person.  It’s the most egregious example of a pattern: food prices in China are nowhere near US prices, except for the bars and restaurants in tourist areas.  This is a story we did not cover.  It’d be an interesting one to pursue.

The food was excellent, even though the menu is written only in Chinese and we limited our choices to the items that have pictures on the menu.  We’d have never gone there without Michael’s snap decision because it’s a real hole in the wall.  So real that the wall has a hole.

The name of our favorite greasy chopstick?  Well, we don’t really know.  Below is the name as written by the waitstaff.  If you know Chinese, get us a Pinyin name and a translation!