China — Dalian, Liaoning, China
Time for some interesting food!
October 2015
After Beijing and the fun and games of getting to the airport and getting a new flight, I moved on to Dalian.
In Dalian, my hosts took me out for an expensive meal, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
On my travels, I have tried many different foods, including insects, and I like to try local specialities when possible.
In Dalian, I went to a restaurant that specialised in fish dishes. And the food was great, and I knew it was fresh as I saw what I ate swimming in tanks at the entrance to the restaurant.
When I first arrived at the restaurant, I wondered if we were visiting an aquarium before dinner. There were so many tanks of live fish and shellfish at the entrance.
The restaurant offered octopus, and there it was, in a tank.
My starter, which I had not tried before, was live sea urchins; I must admit, I liked them.
I have eaten oysters, so eating live shellfish was nothing new, and I knew I liked the taste of oysters. So, I was curious how sea urchins would taste, and I liked it. I found them to be like oysters in that they had the distinct taste of the sea.
The one thing I did find a little off-putting with the sea urchin was when I added soy sauce, they ‘waved’ their spines. I assume the sauce’s high sodium ion levels caused the nerves and muscles to fire. But again, I have seen oysters react to lemon juice with a twitch, so it was something I had seen before. (With lemon juice, it is not the citric acid that causes the twitch but the touch of the lemon or juice.)
Overall, it was an excellent meal (actually, it was more of a banquet than a meal, as there were so many courses and dishes that I lost count). The food was terrific.
After the meal, I travelled back to my hotel on the local metro, and it was great. Super clean and super efficient.
The next day, I went for a meal in a local restaurant, and it was a different experience from the night before. But I did like how your place setting arrived shrink-wrapped.
I left Dalian without incident and travelled to Chengdu in the Sichuan Provence.