Eating in China

The food we ate China, while spicy, wasn't all that tasty. Some dishes were certainly very good, but overall I personally think the food here in Thailand is yummier. When we ate "Chinese" food in America, we typically ate at take-out places, but the Chinese restaurants we saw and ate at were all sit-down. What made the meals interesting is that they eat family style, putting the dishes on a giant lazy-susan in the middle of the table. So when you want something, you just spin it around until the dish you want is in front of you. Here's the really interesting part: there are no serving utensils. The same chopsticks you eat with are the same chopsticks you serve yourself with. Yep, not real sanitary, but that's what they do.

Many of the places we ate at came with a set of dishes that were wrapped in cellophane. Apparently they save money by sending their dirty dishes to another company, which washes them and returns them packaged. Many of the restaurants also had private dining rooms, which you could rent for an additional cost. So if you want to have a quiet, private place to eat and talk--or if you don't want to deal with the smoke (yes, they still smoke in restaurants)--you can get your own room.