The food in Xuzhou was great apart from a handful of dishes. I ate almost everything that was put in front of me apart from the fish, I even ate some cicadas that had been roasted, they were a little crunchy and a wee bit chewy but not bad.

The first place we went to specialised in all things sheep. When we entered the small room it was cameras oot and let the party begin. This was food porn for some I think. Many of the dishes looked amazing, the preparation was perfect which always lulls you into thinking that it will also be delicious which is often not the case.

I thought I was in luck because the waitress brought the dishes to my side of the table and myself and the young Russian girl were thinking this is good. But little did we know we were dealing with professionals that had been in this situation many times and so it went like this.

Don’t touch the food until it’s been photographed and then you can dig in.All the camera’s were on the other side of the table and immediately after the pictures were snapped the vultures dived in and it was an effort just to get the table back round to us to grab some food.

If you have not eaten in a Chinese restaurant then you will not understand but the centre of the table turns and you spin it around and then grab food as it stops in front of you, but the more expert you are the more crafty you are too.

Politeness to the two foreigners only extends so far and then you have to keep a hold of the table with one hand and then use the chopsticks to grab what you can. And some of the women here are pretty strong and you can see that by their physique and the deft way that they can quickly dissect a plate of food.

But to be honest there was no fear of not having enough food because as usual there is too much food brought to the table and there is so much waste. I just hope that they actually do something constructive with the left over food rather than just bin it. Apparently if you finish all the food that is brought to you they will continue to bring more food but when you stop eating and leave all this food, they then realise you are full and finally stop the onslaught.

Two very different outcomes when different cultures come together. We of course think its rude to leave food and so we endeavour to clean our plate but the Chinese read this as these foreigners are greedy bastards.

 

Click here for all the pictures