Beijing, China(formerly Peking)

Beijing is one of the few locations in China where you can find a bit of "outside" influence. There is something of a paradox here. Being the capital city where the government wants to preserve the long standing heritage of China, at the same time, this city is opening its doors to a wide diversity of foreign business and commercial involvement.

Now, I am not trying to sound like a travel brochure. I mention this because I can walk around Beijing without much notice. Some of the other cities where I have been, I get a stare like they just saw a ghost.

Ok, I will get to the beer soon. A little more on food...

Now this is one of my favorite ways to eat in China. The volcano looking thing in the middle of the table is just that. The cone is full of very hot rocks and the liquid around it is boiling. It contains water and hot pepper oil, garlic, and anise.

Depending on what you order, they will bring you uncooked meats and vegetables (or whatever you ordered) and you cook it yourself in the boiling liquid.

The bowl under the chop sticks has a spicy mustard type sauce which you are supposed to dip your food in. The meat on the left is a lean pork. The grey stuff on the right is sheep stomach.(I tried it, um no). The stringy stuff above that is a type of mushroom.

A sure sign of outside influence in Beijing is the cost of eating in a restaurant. The "hot pot" dinner for two people here was 340 RMB (also know as Yuan) which is about $51.

 The same type of dining in a smaller city will cost two people less than $20.

This was a fun "hot pot" dinner in Weihai. Lots of seafood, beef, sheep stomach, and Chinese elk liver sausage. Cost? $11 with 4  1 liter beers.The shrimp that I ate in Weihai and Shanghai was by far the best I have ever had. The white stuff on the lettuce is Pacific lobster. It is really good. I would say a North Atlantic lobster is a  better.

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