Ｆｏｏｄ，Ａｄｖｅｎｔｕｒｏｕｓ　Ｆｏｏｄ，ｗｉｔｈ　Ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ　Ｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒｉｓｔｉｃｓ.docVIP

Ｆｏｏｄ，Ａｄｖｅｎｔｕｒｏｕｓ　Ｆｏｏｄ，ｗｉｔｈ　Ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ　Ｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒｉｓｔｉｃｓ 　　Inever really ate Chinese food before coming to China. That’s the conclusion I reached many years ago, after my first visit to the PRC. I had long enjoyed the tasty, somewhat exotic delights of suburban Chinese restaurants in the US: limpid mo-shoo pork, the pu-pu platter, sautéed meat in a heavy sauce with canned pineapple chunks, and of course the fortune cookie ?C the ubiquitous after-dinner treat which, to Chinese people, is an overseas idiosyncrasy. But this is not really Chinese food. My memories of Chinese dishes outside of China are pretty repetitive. Regardless of which item you order, it seems always to be more or less the same, plus or minus broccoli and snow peas. 　　Chinese classes teach foreigners basic Chinese food vocabulary, including the characters for various ways of cooking meats, vegetables and maybe even cashews. But in real situations this doesn’t get us very far. Names for dishes such as “waterfall of jade petals,” and “clouds floating through moonbeams” make it difficult to know what is what. Some restaurants take the opposite approach of giving more literal names to dishes that disguise something complex and unique. But even intermediate food vocabulary can be daunting. As a big fan of Chinese food and the kinds of gatherings with friends that Chinese dining involves, a few pointers come to mind for new arrivals or visitors to Beijing. 　　For the many of us that have been raised on occasional fortune-cookie-Chinese food, upon arriving in China local cuisine becomes an instant attraction. Exploration and experimentation then ensue. Yet due to the local emphasis on hospitality, as well as the herding behaviors of foreigners, many continue to eat the low-end of Chinese cuisine. Your Chinese friends want you to eat well. This generally means dishes within the typical comfort zone. This continues until they become bold enough to hoodwink you into eating animal parts that they know will make y