Eating in China

Eating in China is very interesting. It's a communal affair. Many dishes are ordered and are brought to the table and placed in the middle and everyone reaches with their chopsticks and gets all they want and either puts it in their mouth or puts some on top of the rice that's in the little bowl in front of everyone. So you do get your own little bowl of rice. Since you lick the chopstics, this may be a bit unsanitary, but I've not gotten sick yet. The food is amazingly good and bears very little resemblance to Chinese food in the US. I don't know if I could even eat at Chinese restaurants again in the States. I don't eat meat, but those that do run into one unfortunate practice of Chinese cooking. When an animal is cut into pieces, it is literally cut into pieces--meaning that a big knife is used to chop a chicken into whatever size pieces are desired, with no care as to the location of the bones. So if you order any meat dish, you will find randomly assorted pieces of bone throughout your food. And yes, some foods are a little exotic, at least for those eating meat. I've been in one restaurant which for various reasons which will become clear, was hidden from view and you had to knock on the door to be let in. Once inside, you may order a number of unusual meat dishes, such as dog, donkey, scorpion, silk worm and various endangered birds. The endangered birds are illegal to kill and hence the restaurant is hidden from view, but the other members of my party apparently liked the bald eagle or whatever it is that they ate. Another popular delicacy are "Century Eggs". See the picture below of century egg and cow stomach soup. These are normal chicken eggs that--while still raw--are buried into the ground for 100 days. At that point they are nice and black as you can see and then they are finally cooked. Apparently the flavor is rather foul and sulphuric but is very delicious?!