Published by Swiss James on 11 Dec 2008 at 12:45 pm
Cheap crabs, big puddings
Every month or so in my office, we abandon the staff canteen and go out to a restaurant together for lunch.
Since there is nothing of interest in the area around the airport (in fact it was all water a few years ago), we drive to a town nearby called Chuansha.
The main tourist attraction in Chuansha is a place where you can buy train tickets. It’s not exactly buzzing. However they do have a very cool “farmer style” restaurant.
Farmers like to eat
I’m not sure why they call it “Farmer style”- maybe it’s because everyone in there stares at foreigners, just like a farmer.
The food itself was presented as a kind of buffet- except you ordered what you wanted as a woman followed you round with a notepad, and then the dishes were delivered to the table.
They had enormous bubbling pots of soup filled with pigs heads, a kind of fried pastry desert that was the size of a football, a genuine Indian guy cooking Paratha, and charge 18RMB for a kind of Crab that you pay 150RMB for on The Bund (I know, I paid it a few weeks ago).
Tasted like a fried yorkshire pudding
There are constant rumours that Disney are going to build one of their massive theme parks in this town. It’s a good idea as far as I can see- the place is handy for the Maglev, and no-one is going to miss such cultural treasures as the Scrap Metal Alley, or Construction Worker Shanty Town.
No doubt the price of Crabs will shoot up, but that’s a price that I think is worth paying.
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Those footballs are incredible I’ve never seen anything like it. Did you bring one back? Perhaps we can have a kick about at the weekend.
They collapsed into a heap when you stuck a chopstick in them- delicious, but no good for footy
The price of hairy crabs is going way down this year.
i like that they have on masks.
Your pictures are great, food looks delicious!
What’s the deal with the masks? I’ve seen a lot of new immigrants who work around here in some local food places with masks as well. It’s not like the food stinks.
I think the trick was to feed you those big soccer balls so you can’t eat anything else in this all you can eat restaurant? :)
Masks: I think its so they don’t contaminate the food they’re cooking, you know, if they happen to be sick.
I think the masks make a lot more sense than hairnets- I’m not much of a germaphobe but I don’t really like the idea of someone coughing on my pork.
The footballs were for pudding, luckily, otherwise I think I would have been too full
Dave, they’re moonlighting, by night they’re surgeons at the local hospital, they can’t be bothered to get changed.
Swiss, my mate used to work in a shop in Rusholme, they used to sell special hairnets for beards called beard shnoods (no need for them in China mind!)
“Pastry desert” James? Sahara or Gobi?
I know I should have googled that word. Is there an easy way to remember which is which Neal?
James, your snow is turning funny. Like different colors. Is that because of pollution?
Is there an easy way to remember which is which Neal?
You always want more of dessert. And less of desert.
There’s nothing wrong with my snow! The really cold flakes are blue, the normal flakes are a light grey, and the rest are a darker grey.
Just like real life.