Last dinner in China

We decided to have Peking duck yet one more time. Chuanming Zong recommended one called Jiu Hua Shang, and a math department secretary thought she knew where it was, so she wrote something in Chinese for me to give to the taxi driver. But the directions turned out to be rather vague and when we went to the designated location, we were unable to find the restaurant anywhere.

So I asked the taxi driver if he knew of a nice Peking duck restaurant. I told him we had already been to Quanjude and wanted to try another one that was good but not as expensive. He responded that he knew one near Qinghua University (so also near Peking University). He drove us to a complex of big office buildings, pointed to one and said, "do you see it? It's right there!" I couldn't see anything but trusting him, we paid and got out. Walking up the steps to the plaza in front of the building, we discovered we had been tricked. Yes, there was a Peking duck restaurant but it was another Quanjude!

Walking inside, we discovered an elegant fancy restaurant, much nicer and quieter than the crowded and noisy downtown one. So we knew we weren't going to save any money but we figured we might as well enjoy it. We ordered a deluxe version of the duck (no idea why it is deluxe but we figured we might as well have the best), duck hearts, Chinese broccoli (jie lan), and another green vegetable (darn, I forget the Chinese name). They told us the duck would take an hour and brought the other food first. Nick ordered an orange mango drink which turned out to be freshly squeezed orange juice mixed with mango juice without any sugar or other sweetening. He liked it very much. We decided to indulge in a 288 yuan 10 year old bottle of "yellow wine", warmed up. It was wonderful. All of the food was delicious. The duck was sublime. As a bonus, they brought both wheat and corn flour wrappers (Lauren is allergic to wheat). The restaurant was near closing time, so it was fairly empty and quiet. We had a nice long relaxing dinner. We got a certificate; the restaurant claims that every duck served is assigned a serial number (since the mid 1800's!).

So despite being deceived, we ended up enjoying ourselves completely. And, as a bonus, it was a very short ride back to the hotel.