Asia Adventures, Installment 4: Noodles, Dumplings and No Rice, Oh My!

A trip would not be complete for our family without some amazing food.  I did not have high hopes for the food to blow me away in China.  I didn't really have any hopes or fears, but was pretty neutral going into the trip.  The distraction of the sights and seeing my brother and sister-in-law prevented me from even dwelling on what we would be eating.

Needless to say, the food was the black horse in the 'best part of the trip' race. We ended up eating some amazing food in some pretty fabulous places.  And we even had a taste of home (by way of England) for a few meals.

There was a few interesting things we learned while eating in China: 1.) Rice is an after meal addition and 2.) Americans drink a lot of fluids.
Lesson one for the silly Americans: 
At one of our lunches with our tour guide in Beijing my dad asked "Where's the rice?," as we were shoveling in the delicious chicken, pork and vegetable dishes in front of us.  Our tour guide quickly ordered a few bowls of rice and then informed us that traditionally rice is not served until the end of the meal and only if you are not full from the main dishes.  It was an a-ha moment for us, but of course once the rice arrived we did not hesitate to pile it on our plates with everything else.
The sub lesson to this was that in China they do not mix the rice with the main dishes. We learned that lesson once we tried to pick our food up with chop sticks and the rice was not in nice clumps anymore. Bring on the forks! (silly Americans)

Lesson 2 happened towards the end of our trip.  Actually it was the end.  It was our last dinner in Hong Kong.  We went to a very nice Chinese restaurant where it was obvious that it was the place for families to go.  It was a Saturday evening and we loved watching all the families gather around their tables, chatting and laughing with one another. The families gathering were not just nuclear families, but extended families. Grandma and Grandpa, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins...everyone.  The difference between their tables and ours (other than our severe lack of chopstick skills) was the amount of drinks we had on our table.  We had 2 different kinds of water, wine, beer, and hot tea.  They even had to bring a small table to set next to our big table to keep some of the drinks on. Apparently we were thirsty.  Maybe that's why our eyes are blue.

Another side note from that evening...
There was a little girl a little older than Ollie sitting behind us.  Eventually she and Oliver noticed each other. The little girl started to cry when she saw Ollie (or maybe it was Ryan, we will never know).  But Ryan started to sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and the little girl's dad started singing it too!  It was adorable and the little girl calmed down (although still pretty wary of our very odd table).

So just to get your mouths watering, here are some pics of our delicious meals!

Thanks to Hong Kong once being a British colony in years past, there were tons of English restaurants and pubs.
This is one of the pubs we had lunch at. 

This was our first meal in Beijing and the noodles were AMAZING.
And who knew the spoon was there to help you slurp up the noodle!

Ollie was a fan of chopsticks.
I was not a fan of Ollie with chopsticks...
'You could poke your eye out with that thing!'
(Seriously already with the cliches!)

The very neat tea cups.  

What's a trip to China without Peking Duck!!
It was pretty good, especially the crispy skin dipped in sugar.
(totally healthy right??)

Ok, this is better than chopsticks.
Ollie loved these spoons.  It kept him entertained for all our meals.
We even bought one to bring home with us and it still works!

Some of the fabulous dumplings we had!

The aftermath of our dumpling lunch!
Do you think we liked it??