“Chinese food in China is completely different from Chinese food at home.”

As a first-time traveller to China I had heard this message so often.  I knew to expect the unexpected.  But was it actually true?

Up to a point. On our first evening in Beijing we found that street with food vendors serving everything from whole starfish to deep-fried ice cream.  You have probably seen it on a travel programme on the television.  It is compulsory for western presenters to be filmed munching a scorpion on a stick.  However, as we had no film crew and there was a very strong prevailing smell of drains in the area, we opted instead to try the famous Beijing roast duck in a proper restaurant. This was not as different from the aromatic crispy duck we get at home as I had been led to expect, but the waitress was clearly exasperated by our attempts at making pancake rolls, and demonstrated the technique, though to my mind she ‘cheated’ by using three chopsticks, when we had only been provided with two. Very good entertainment for 75 yuan.

After a somewhat hair-raising visit to the Great Wall at Jinshangling we were taken to the restaurant about which our itinerary gave dire warnings. It was air-conditioned and we were served a set meal of chicken with cashews, sweet and sour pork, stir fried cucumber and aubergine in black bean sauce, which we found excellent. Our guide, Penny, could not understand why we were so enthusiastic, as it was not that good in her opinion, so we let the side down again. 

In Xi’an, we agreed to play the tourist and go to a Tang Dynasty show in the evening for 300 yuan each, including dumpling banquet.  The banquet comprised 18 different kinds of dumpling (chicken, pork, abalone, prawn, pickle, walnut etc.) plus soup, meat and peanuts. All very tasty, though I really didn’t feel the need for a dumpling again for the rest of the trip.

At the Chinese restaurant in our hotel in Dunhuang we had shredded beef; duck with green peppers and broccoli with bacon; accompanied by an endless supply of jasmine tea for 69 yuan.  Some of the other menu options were rather exotic: ‘delicious braised pig’s hoof soup’; ‘sautéed agglomerated pig’s blood with hot pepper’; ‘black bone chicken and Chinese caterpillar soup’; ‘braised donkey’s meat with lump’; ‘braised camel’s paw’; ‘assorted slivers of camel hump’. At lunch the following day we  again avoided the more exotic fare in favour of  minced lamb and spring onions with pancakes; chicken and peanuts and stir-fried strips of potato for 62 yuan. 

So was the food really that different from Chinese food at home? Yes and no. What we ate may not have been entirely authentic for it was really not so far removed from our local Chinese restaurant, though that is (or was, as it has sadly closed now) exceptional.  It was certainly very different from an all-you-can eat ‘Chinese’ buffet.

We visited China as part of a journey along the Silk Road in 2007.