Sichuan cuisine

The last time I actually went off-site for dinner in Beijing was over a year ago. We used to go out to dinner fairly often, but in the last 2-3 years it's only been for business dinners. Of course, almost everything I do over here is business, but the hotel restaurants are good, and it's nice to just head right upstairs once dinner is done. This trip, we're at least pushing ourselves to venture beyond the hotel, bringing us good Indian food two nights ago, and Sichuan last night. Mind you, both restaurants are in the China World complex where our hotel is, so we don't even need to walk outside - good when it feels like New Orleans outside.



Below are some examples of what's on the menu at South Beauty - pardon the off colors:

Sichuan sweet and sour fish. This was fantastic, not syrupy sweet like a lot of American chinese dishes I've had. Just the right amount of breading too.

These mashed potatoes turned out to be pretty good, with more of a risotto consistency. Not as good as my garlic mashed though...

Everything gets used.

Like I said above....

I've always heard frog's legs were good, but Kermit got a pass tonight.

Mmmm, fins, snouts, lips and ligaments. Sadly, shark's fin soup is considered a delicacy here, but for some reason the rest of the shark is thrown back, or out. For a country that really drains every last drop they can out of their food, this one escapes me. One more bad western trend they're beginning to follow.

I've had beef tongue before, easy enough to find when your relatives owned jewish delis in New York, and I tried chicken feet on the last trip. But the two together... hold me back!

We actually ordered more "normal" food, like BBQ spare ribs which were fantastic, pickled veggies, sliced bamboo, grilled sardines, marinated tofu, dumplings, and sauteed chicken (once again an incredibly tasty dish, but someone else got all the good meat while we seemed to get little more than bones and joints). I'm learning to like Sichuan food best, versus Mandarin or Cantonese, because I've found it to have stronger flavors and spicier ingredients. Hopefully we'll push ourselves to try restaurants serving the other two styles as well, instead of what is clearly the dumbed down versions of all in the hotels.