first meal in China - Hou Hai Lake 后海, Beijing, 2006-12
This is the first meal I remember eating in China. We enjoyed this clay-pot chicken dish in a restaurant just off Hou Hai Lake in Beijing back in 2006. The area has since been through several regeneration initiatives and I don’t believe the restaurant survived the second of these. I struggled with chopsticks, I struggled with the different textures, and with things I’d never heard of let alone considered edible. But I enjoyed the meal.
Back then, restaurants in China used to observe strict opening hours. It always struck me as odd how early lunchtime was. We kept wandering in to restaurants only to find them about to shut for the afternoon. The empty tables in the background suggest we made that mistake at our very first meal. These days restaurants are a little less strict but you can find yourself out of luck if you want to eat mid afternoon.
The photo was taken on a Canon DIGITAL IXUS 850 IS, a camera I purchased for the trip.