A Thanksgiving Day Feast

Since finding a turkey was out of the question, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving with our fellow sojourner, Tom, at a restaurant in Emei City. At first, Tom wanted to try a new "fusion" restaurant as suggested by our fellow teacher, Mr. Gao. We were going to meet downstairs at around 1730 and travel by hired van to the restaurant. At around 1640, we got a call from Tom stating that Mr. Gao thought the suggested restaurant was too expensive. We both agreed that there would be no Sichuan Hot Pot on our Thanksgiving day celebration.



At 1730, the van picked us up and delivered us to a restaurant called the Ai Er Lai Restaurant and Bar. Mr. Gao and his friend, Jason, were waiting for us in the lounge area. It was a nice restaurant but in a rather isolated location not far from the university

As usual, two lovely ladies welcomed us to the restaurant with smiles and greetings. The place was modern and looked very clean.

We got a private room and settled in for our Thanksgiving meal exchanging pleasantries with Jason and among ourselves. It was a comfortable room, big and attractively decorated.

When it came time to order, we were given a beautifully published menu with tempting pictures of the dishes from which to choose. Mr. Gao and Tom immediately began to check out the dishes.

As Tom looks at the menu to choose, I took this shot to give you an idea of the many beautiful pictures in their menu.

Early on, Tom ran the hostess away so he could choose without feeling intimidated by a waitress hanging around waiting. This is usually what happens with the waitress or hostess patiently standing over one's shoulder to take the order. This hostess was especially nice and pleasant and came back after the appropriate time to take our Thanksgiving order.

I even got into the act by helping Tom and Mr. Gao choose one of the dishes.

We finalized our choices and turned in our order. Tom, Mr. Gao and Jason ordered a bottle of red wine while Sunee drank the standard tea and I got my pepsi. We were all set to enjoy our 2008 Thanksgiving celebration feast.

The following items made up this year's successful Thanksgiving Day Dinner:

The first thing we received was this "kimchi-like" appetizer of shredded radishes. Pretty standard faire in Sichuan. This was DELICIOUS as Tom would never say.

Tom has let it be know to his student daily that the word delicious in describing food is way overused among his students. I tended to agree with his assessment as all food eaten by Chinese students is delicious. When was the last time you called food "delicious?" For me, food is good, great, wonderful, etc but never just delicious.

Next up, we got some spare ribs as the second appetizer on our feast. These were tasty but each had very little meat. Guess that is why it was called an appetizer.

This dish resembled a plate of turkey dressing and reminded us of Thanksgiving. But wait, it was Thanksgiving so maybe this dish had nothing to do with our collective memories.

This dish was excellent as the ball turned out to be a meatloaf like substance with a wonderful (not necessarily delicious) brown sauce. Sunee identified the meat as "probably chicken." It was very good.

Corn fritter pancakes. This we had before and wanted to make sure we did not get too far "off the reservation" with our orders. As usual, these were very good and, of course, Tom Delicious.

Potatoes in Sichuan are a sure thing winner. The potatoes I have had in Sichuan remind me of what my grandma used to fix in the summer on the family farm near Anadarko in Oklahoma. Fresh, big, wonderful and even delicious. Sichuan produces fabulous vegetables throughout the year. Potatoes just happen to be one of my favorites.

A spicy dish of noodles made from seaweed. This dish was spicy but very good. This is really what Sichuan is all about- SPICY!

This was our "turkey" or centerpiece dish. A deep-fried fish in sweet and sour sauce. It looked great and tasted even better. Generally, Sunee and I do not eat fish in Sichuan. There tends to be way too many small bones to fight in order to eat the fish. This fish had virtually no bones with the flesh sliced up into little cubes and easily extracted from the fish. I did not personally experience a single evil little bone. The sauce was delicate and pleasing to the eyes and the taste buds. Dare I say "delicious" once again, knowing that Tom will check out this blog in the next couple of days. No. I believe I will not utter the D-word in respect for Mr. Tom.

Mr. Gao and Mr. Tom went off the reservation on this one. The meat you see in the bowl is made up of a bunch of Kermit The Frogs who paid for this Thanksgiving with their lives. Frogs in broth. I tried one and found it a little too froggy for my tastes.

We finished the dishes and then ordered one more to round out the meal. Here we have pancakes or rather crepes made from beer with a raison here and there mixed in. Interesting crepes but not very impressive to finish off our Thanksgiving meal. Our "turkey," the fried sweet and sour fish, had been the big winner. We all gave thanks for our meal and enjoyed the festivities.

The bill came and Tom demanded to pay it. I think the whole thing came to around $35 or so for the five of us including the wine. Can you see why it is very pleasant to live and eat in China?

Happy Thanksgiving ONE AND ALL!