A MEAL IN A STRANGE EASTERN RESTAURANT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10505, 13 July 1910, Page 6

A MEAL IN A STRANGE EASTERN RESTAURANT.

At first the stranger in Pekm yearns for the pastures which he has left behind 1 him in the "West, and he wonders how long he can endure. But if he is wise he learns to stifle imagination and choke desire for cleanliness; he then ceases to care that the stafF of life is soiled and dirt-encrusted, his olfactory organs become, as those of the Chinese, impervious to bad odors, and he eats simply because he has to. In" the matter of food a Chinaman's taste is unique and entirely his own. He admits no—other standard. He favors the worship of his ancestors in j religion, and apparently has a taste for the antique in his food. For everything has a vague flavor of the past, and suggests the idea that you are dining of the,relics of a. museum. In your own house you make an attempt to superintend the boiling of water, which is otherwise dangerous to drink, and you eat with a certain feeling of security that all is well. But in a restaurant your uneasiness returns, and you are filled with strange misgivings. Consequently it was with no little trepidation that wo accepted an invitation to dine at a Chinese restaurant the other evening, though it proved on inquiry to lie one of the best that Pekin offers —the resort of mandarins, scholars, and men of business. The manager and his staff, in long, crumpled blue linen coats, received us each separately in a curious jerky fashion, bending at the knees and •waist. Then the head boy, a pockmarked, lanky fellow, took us into an uncanny-looking passage, which felt as if it led to the den of forty thieves. However, after feeling our way cautiously for an interminable minute and stumbling over steps in the -dark, we eventually climbed down through a small circular opening in the wall and saw, by the light"of an ornamental, red-tasselled lantern, our host and his guests assembled in a room beyond. From here, as there were no doors, it was easy, though not expedient, to see into the regions whence issued the odors of cooking, and where a host of pig-tailed, grimy creatures prepared the delicacies of the evening. In one corner of the room was an opium divan covered in dark blue linen, while a dozen low wooden stools were placed- near a small round table. This ratter, bare of cloth, was littered, with sweetmeats and set down for seven people. After the customary salutations and introductions, our host genially waved us to he seated and to partake of such appetisers as met our fancy. Before each of us lay a minute plate, bowl, and microscopic cup, from which to drink the hot rice wine served throughout the meal. There were also a pair of ebony and silver chopsticks, an ebonv two-pronged fork, and a round-bowled'., long-handled spoon resembling a soup ladle. Underneath every plate were a dozen tiny squares of coarse paper on which to wipe our chopsticks, after dipping them m one or other of the two cups of hot water set for the purpose. When the water resembled soup it was replaced by a fresh supply, but this must have been a purely European innovation, for I noticed our host dispensed with the water altogether, and only occasionally wiped his chopsticks on the papers. On looking back upon the meal, it seemed to me that the best part of ?fc was that which was now set upon the table. There were plates of roast melon seeds and peanuts, of fresh nuts and nuts in sugar; there were sweetmeats of lotus root, which looked like fondants and tasted like the food, of the unearthly; there were squares of apricot jelly, hard, watery pears, oranges which had been soaked in water and made hitter, and small green bananas about the size of a pea pod. There were, too, raw beans soaked in oil, onions, pulverised meats, and unnamed salads. After a polite twenty minutes had passed in sampling these confections, our host, with a queer sucking-in-noiso and spoon uplifted, cordially invited' us to dip with him into the central bowl. It looked like a white soup, but proved to" be stewed sweet potatoes. Having secured a spoonful, it was no easy matter to get rid of 'it, for the top edge of the spoon caught the end of your nose. Consequently there was nothing to do but to link out the bowl as grace- | fully as possible or throw what remained into the cup of hot water. After this, plate after plate and bowl after bowl followed each other in bewildering succession. And each time we helped ourselves simultaneously,. or our host graciously selected a choice morsel and put it on our plates with his own chopsticks. One moment we were eating ducks' eggs whoso blackened, lime-flavored whites indicated that their age was unimpeachable; the next we were grappling with sea weeds, macaroni, and the slippery sharks' fins that eluded our clumsily manipulated sticks. Now we tackled—not without fear—unknown meats and vegetables cooked in sugar, fresh srimps, mushrooms from Mongolia, young bamboo sprouts, pigeons' eggs, and a hundred different foreigntastiiig messes. Then clean plates were given to us, and bowls of sickly pink syrup, sweet potato, and Indian corn cakes of dusky hue were set before each one. These were only crevice fillers, and concluded the first and lighter portion of the repast. Now came the real substantial meal, wherein every dish had an accompaniment of smaller' ones, containing gravies, etc., in which to dip the morsel taken from the central bowl. There were stewed duck cooked without salt, roast sucking pig, forcemeat balls and chicken; there were soups ot birds' nest, of mushroom, of vegetables, and of sea slugs. There was grilled fresh water fish, which, according to custom, was helped from the top side only, for the Chinaman remembers his servant. "And, finally, at the conclusion the inevitable small bowl of rice and rice water was set before each person. After some three hours, with a feeling of thankfulness that all was over, pipes, -cigarettes, and the tea was served, and it seemed to me that the delicious aroma which rose from the latter soothed our senses and almost dispelled the antipathy that had been growing on us for all things Chinese.