Dinner at Hotel Zhang

We headed to Hotel Zhang for a Lonely Planet-recommended dinner. It turned out to be among our favorite real Chinese meals of the trip. 

Before I get to the food, lemme spend a few seconds on the typical table setting. You may think you're looking at a soup bowl and spoon, a bread plate and a soy sauce dish with chopsticks. No, you're not. 

You put whatever you're eating in the soup bowl, and feel free to balance it in the soup spoon while eating it with the chopsticks. After you're done gnawing, use the plate to discard the bare bones/scales/fur/hard bits. At least, I think that's how you do it. 

You are right about the soy sauce dish, though it could also be for black vinegar or hot chili paste, too. 

Also, here's a menu pic. On the bottom left, there's a dish called "The Eggplant is Boiled," which we ordered. Clearly, we had no real clue what we were getting. Just because there's an English menu doesn't mean you know a damn thing about what you're eating. You gotta just roll them bones. 

To keep this craps analogy going, we just kept hitting the point tonight. The chicken (with artfully displayed head to the upper right) was rich and moist, with a wonderful soy-and-garlic-based sauce for dipping. The crispy fish was sauced with a sweet-and-sour-bbq, and fried perfectly. It was also served on fire (see video below). "The Eggplant is Boiled" was tender and coated in a rich, sweet, hoisin-type glaze. 

The crab, though, the crab was the highlight. It was cooked fast in a hot wok, with fat slices of ginger and a few hot chilis. Sure, Chinese people pretty much kicked our ass all trip as far as eating all the edible bits of any given meal, but we held our own on crabs. They were sweeter, with thicker shells and the meat wasn't nearly as dense, but other than that it was just like we'd picked 'em up on Maine Avenue. 

They set the fish on fire just as they set it down. It's not that this presentation was so staggering or outrageous, it's just that when you have no idea that something is going to be served on fire, and then it gets lit on fire, well, it takes you back. Also, you know, setting things on fire is cool. 

I generally cringe a little when we walk away from a table, because we tend to leave a lot of food behind. Not tonight.