Fresh Off The Plane - In China!

Days 1 and 2 in China have been quite interesting so far and have included tons and tons of food - so you'll find that this post will have a lot to do with... well, food! Here's day 1 just to get things started!

Anyhow, upon our arrival, one of the first places we went to was a bread shop that my dad visits often in town. It reminds me a typical Chinese bread shop in say Rowland Heights like Diamond Bakery, haha. The owner speaks great English since he actually came over from Hawaii and was talking about how things are just so different in China... agreed!

One of the funny things that I quickly discovered is how my Dad had given his employees English names to make things easier for himself. His secretary got the name Toni, his driver and tech guy got the name Andy, etc. I guess it makes it easier for him considering his Chinese certainly isn't that great.

We spent our first night eating out at what's supposed to be the most "popular" restaurant in Dalian, China. A lot of the restaurants are interesting because they look more like hotels and have "rooms" that you can reserve for your party. In this seafood restaurant, we were seated in room 408.

What was even more interesting was the way you order food - the menu looked like a 99 Ranch seafood section with the tanks of fish, ice patches with tons of fresh seafood sitting on top, etc. Basically, you walk around the "menu" as a host follows you and takes your order as you look, point, etc. Photos of all this are below:

Some seafood and clams - big clams might I add!

As you can see, there are a lot of options and they're all just in these baskets. Oh, and of course the tanks behind!

Different fish and... squid?

Almost a 2-pound lobster... anyone? =)

Of course, Chinese dishes are often incomplete without side-dishes and/or cold dishes!

Some more dishes, soups, and other options. I still found it interesting to order in this way!

This bowl of insect-looking things are what we call "Sea Cucumbers" - I still have no idea what they really are, but they're a bit slimy and soft when you eat them, haha.

As you can see, the menu was heavy on seafood, mainly because Dalian is a port city and simply has a lot of it. However, I've also been told that seafood is still quite expensive in the city nonetheless. After ordering, we took the elevator up to the fourth floor and to our private room where there was a server waiting to help us throughout the evening.

One of the big things I've also noticed in China is simply how many employees there are at some of these restaurants - so many in fact that not only does each rooms has a server that is there to serve your food as well as someone to bring the food to you, most also have individuals whose sole responsibility is to stand at the front door and greet people as they enter!

What this tells me is that while human labor is cheap in China, it doesn't mean they maximize profits - instead, there is some level of care to hire additional employees and focus more on service rather than on profits. I certainly think a lot of people could greatly appreciate the high level of attention they might get in a city like this. When you raise your hand for a server or even just call out "server", people would literally run to your table to help!

The meal that we had for the evening had a plethora of different seafood dishes as follows:

This massive scallop is something I've seen in restaurants in LA as well - extremely tender and lots of flavor!

We ordered abalone soup - it's supposed to be real abalone but I certainly can't tell from the small amount that we had.

Here is the slimy sea cucumber I had mentioned. Interesting, right?

This steamed fish came at a point late enough in the evening that we didn't have any room left to really enjoy it!

Check out the interesting desserts! (Left) Pumpkin shaped/colored sweet buns (Right) Some kind of crunchy dessert that looks more like a pineapple!

Our company for the evening (left to right) - Top: Me, Andy (our driver)'s wife, Selena (the accountant), Toni (the secretary), Andy, the company lawyer. Bottom: My Dad, My Mom, the lawyer's wife.

All in all, the meal was extremely interesting and completely different from what we might expect of Chinese food back in the states. Things are actually a lot more heavily flavored here (in many cases saltier) and there is a huge amount of variety to the kinds of Chinese food you could expect to have. The service is 10x better than what we're used to at Chinese restaurants, though you almost get the feeling there's a level of condescension in how servers are treated because of their roles. Of course, I've been told that people in Dalian are some of the nicest you'd find in all of Northern China, and certainly so far that has been true (except for on the road... which is another story).