CHINESE CAFE IN LONDON.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13864, 21 November 1913, Page 8

CHINESE CAFE IN LONDON.

Tho recently opened Chinese cafe in Piccadilly (London) is the first of v number to be opened in various ■ parts of London, and does not rely on ex-, ternals for its Chinese^ atmosphere., the interior, according to a writer in the "Westminster Gazette," being decorated simply in the European man-

ner. Tho meals, on the other hand, are characteristically Oriental. Take the. dinner menu. The Chinese order of courses is the inverse..of-the European, the order being, roughly ;«Tea,. meat, fish, soup,'{tea. A rich ffi'an's dinner takes about two hours to strugglei through, the. number of dishes always being a multiple of four, generally 24 or 28. A favourite 'dish is "pou yu tong," a soup made from the av/abi, a small shellfish found near Shanghai. Another is "kai chop suey," a finely-minced mixture of rice, pork, celery, onion, bean sprout, chicken, white mushroom, bamboo shoots, and other components. Other dishes which are calculated to come as mild surprises to the Londoner are preserved eggs (some of them said to be 40 years old), sliced jelly-fish with pickle, birds' nest (referred to on the menu as "kai yung ;yin wo"), shark's fin, bambooshoot, lily-root, dried chrysanthemums, sea-slug soup, chickens' 'brains, sinews of deer and whales, pickled fir-tree coups, and "de-poh," or .sun-dried "lemon-soles." Considerable taste is needed by the uninitiated European in negotiating these weird concoctions with the aid of the unfamiliar chopstick. But one advantage of the chopstick over the knife and fork is said to be that indigestion is thereby rendered almost an impossibility. One can only eat so very little at a time with' these delicate ivory utensils.