REMARKABLE FOOD SHOP

Southland Times, Issue 22157, 27 October 1933, Page 2

REMARKABLE FOOD SHOP

“A SIMPLE LITTLE DINNER.” £5O FOR DINNER FOR FOUR. A simple little dinner for four—price £5O. That is one of the items in the price list of the most extraordinary food shop in London, a woman correspondent of the Sunday Chronicle writes: “Yesterday I went ‘shopping’ at this place. It is a little shop in Soho —with slightly fantastic Oriental prices. ‘Fish Air Bladders’ at 56/- a pound, the head-bones of the ‘Sacred Yellow Fish,’ at 50/- a pound, and tea at 21/a pound are only some of the strange commodities you may buy—if you can afford it!

“I found this tiny Soho shop crowded with blue-bloused Chinese, chattering and chaffing. Here and there stood a dignified English man-servant, with a basket, obviously embarrassed at his errand.

“Tea, in this Oriental warehouse, is not just tea. It is a precious beverage deserving of respect and a lingering choice between the merits of ‘Poo Yung Boo,’ ‘Loong Chen,’ or ‘Teet Geong Lum,’ all costing between 10/6 and 21/a pound. “Two or three pounds of sharks’ fins—a good soup needs this much—costs about £5, and look like long strips of shredded wheat. Boiled with chicken for several hours, it is said to be the most delicious soup in the world, with the possible exception of bird-nest soup. The ‘nests’ for this soup cost four guineas a pound. “But the tour de force of the whole shop is ‘Snow Fungus,’ which is kept in tightly sealed glass tubes and costs 16 guineas a pound. This comes from the mountains of Northern China, where it is dug out from the eternal snows.

“ ‘Oh, yess,’ ” smiled the Chinese proprietor. “ ‘Many English people buy these things for special dinner-party. But the Chinese, he buy alia time —it is the food of his home.’ ”