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18th Anniversary Celebration

We have talked for a few years that for our 20th anniversary we would take an international trip.  I guess you could say we made it for our 18th.  This is hardly a trip of pleasure or a get away, though.  (Even though we are most definitely 'away' and we do find much pleasure in it!)   It's a bit hard to take off on a get away here as we don't have anyone to entrust our girls to, nor would we leave them alone. But we did find some fine dining to celebrate our happiness to be together.

Mr. Hu recommended it to us and Tom made reservations.  We took a taxi and arrived all by ourselves (without our driver--you have no idea how big of an accomplishment those things were!).
Complimentary fruit:  nectarines plums and grapes.
Complementary crackers.  Slightly sweet and very good!
The menu was an entire book with large pictures.  
This was one option. We didn't get it; but I'm curious enough that I think we'll get it next time.
We got a salad.  It had rolled up mango slices, golden kiwis, apples, and some dried fruit on lettuce.  It had the only kind of salad dressing we've ever had here in China.  We do like it a lot, but it's surprising that is all we've ever had. 
This was a very interesting appetizer.  It was all cold.  It had shrimp and fish preparations, a slice of cooked pumpkin (with skin on), some gelatinous preparations--some likely fruit and some meat, then two that had cream cheese type fillings. 
A whole fish.  I did not care for this one; Tom liked it quite a bit.
This is a lobster dish with glutinous rice.  This was their signature dish. It was ¥758, so about $111.  While we were expecting this to be a pricier meal, this price seemed comparable to what we might pay in the US.  This was extremely tasty and even though it was a very large dish for two people, we ate. all. of. it.  Very yummy. The drawback was that the meat was still on the shell.  Here in China they believe in keeping everything in tact. So you have to work hard to get it off.  It's not easy, but we do our best. It's not a process that exhibits very good manners to an American.  I do know that what we do is not especially good manners to the Chinese.  They think it is bad manners to leave any bone or shell with a single trace of meat on it. That involves putting everything in your mouth and fishing everything off with your tongue.  I'm not quite ready for that....
This was a rice dessert that one of us thought was a koi fish and one thought was a pelican on its back.  I won't tell you who thought which was which.  I will just say that the smarter of the two was right. It had coconut milk to swim in and when they added some lemon that was dyed blue, the coconut milk turned purple.  They did that in front of you so that was cool to see.  It was a bit sweet with some tart.  A very unique flavor, but quite tasty.
Decorations at the restaurant
The live seafood area.
When I see a statue, it seems I can't be retrained from taking a picture. (Or so the girls tell me; but I do have a very large and growing stash of statue pictures.)
See, here I did it again.
Tom paying for our meal. Between him and the butler you can see a Häagen Dazs ice cream cooler.  We did not see that soon enough--which was good because we did not need to eat more.  Even with the lobster, the meal ended up being not very expensive for what we got--everything else must have been China-priced. We will be going back here with Tessa and Greta.
Everything is always an adventure here in China (and if it's not, you will at least get to see some statues!). It was fun and if you ever visit us, we will make sure to take you here--we've got to have a legitimate excuse to get through that whole menu book!

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