Quote Originally Posted by bossel
The counter experience was a little restaurant in Beijing where I had Beijing duck, which was a huge disappointment. Bad service, taste alright, but not good, bad manners by the personnel (we sat right in front of some kitchen part & one of them constantly stared at me eating).
That was kind of like my experience, the food was not bad tasting, but I expected more of it. Also if some of the waitresses look at you as if they want to jump your plate and eat it's not that comfortable People stared at me every second of the time I spent in China, unlike Japan where people didn't even mind or hardly looked.


Really? Well, I admit, it tastes well, but it's always the same (more like dessert [pastries?] than like bread, anyway, except when it's steamed with meat inside). Real bread (what I'd call real) doesn't look tasty (didn't buy it since I didn't have anything to put upon, only found something like cut (sausage or cheese) when we arrived in Beijing) & is as expensive as in Germany.
I didn't buy regular bread either for the same reasons, but I had a lot of pastry goods filled with wipped cream.One time I mistook the bread for one filled with W/cream but it was filled with some reddish paté or red beans.BIG MISTAKE !


Bad advice! Some of the tastiest stuff I ate was from small restaurants or vending booths. You just have to find the right place, which should be not too hard if you have some Chinese friends. About hygiene you're right, though, but that's a topic of its own in China. One of the most tasty stuff I had, meat skewers, was prepared by a guy who had fingers, dirty beyond recognition.
Haven't seen anything like what you said about 10 people at one table, except for the cases when I was invited into backrooms of a restaurant for a family meeting. But the tables were big & round, no problem there.
Yeah that kind of thing is exactly what I mean, the round tables which can be rotated.Also this wasn't a small restaurant nor a vending booth, it was a big room filled with small tables and people packed like pigs.No privacy whatsoever That's what I mean with family restaurants, cheap and quantity above quality.

Nah, here I definitely cannot agree. The variety of Chinese food is phenomenal (I was there for only 3 weeks & touched only the surface of this sea of food). Dim sum alone are a world of their own. Same could be said about dumplings. There are numerous variaties.
Well I think every place has it's own speciality maybe, so ofcourse you have a wide range of different food and styles.But unlike Japan I didn't see that much fish in China no Sushi,Sashimi etc.
Don't you think Chinese are more of a men/mien people? Always noodles, rice is more of a sidedish.They don't even eat every grain of rice !!