Imagine this: you are rubbing your chin, analyzing the city with an app that is useless due to the fact that every street name is written in Chinese characters! Google maps….it’s killing you. The answer is sitting right in front of your face with all but a small barrier of alphabetical translation. Your only hope is to walk in the direction of your target. After about another thirty minutes of walking, you get anxious and frustrated. You take charge and ask a Chinese man walking out of his restaurant if he knows which direction you are going and where the right restaurant is. His arm transforms into a strait position parallel to the ground. Your eyes follow from his shoulder, to his hand, to the tip of his finger and beyond. Your eyes end up in a dark alleyway. You squeeze out the one phrase you know in Chinese “Xie Xie”…or “thank you.” You follow the alleyway till you see a LED sign with the words “Da Dong Famous Braised Sea Cucumber” written on it. At first you think “OK now I’m really lost, braised sea cucumber?” But then the words make their way back around your mind. “DADONG!”…you scream inside like a high school girl at a Justin Bieber concert. This is the famous duck restaurant of Beijing that you began to grow doubtful you would ever find. This is it!
You walk in 30 minutes past your reservation and hope no one pulled a “Date Night” on you and stole your table. Your hostess finds you in the dense database of reservations, thank god. Your hostess zeros in on your mom. “All yours?” The hostess directs towards the children. Your mom confirms her hypothesis, and that same reply that has echoed throughout your entire trip comes again. “Wow!”
You walk to your table, and take a seat. They do the thing that signals “this is a very nice restaurant” — the waiter places your napkin on your lap for you. They bring out something that looks like a laminated bible. It’s kind of like the bible, because it’s the menu.
You open to the first page hoping for drinks, but no, lying in front of your face is a table of contents. You flip threw the menu a little and you see some of the most bizarre things you’ve ever seen on a menu: pigeon brain, duck feet and that famous braised sea cucumber. You pass the menu onto the next person without even trying to decipher it. You’re just going to order a ginger ale, and of course duck. You put in your order and give back the 15 pound menu. You discuss the ambiance of the restaurant with your family. After 2 minutes, your drinks arrive. You sip your ginger ale while listening to people’s conversations from the tables around you, until IT comes.
A man with a chef’s hat rolls in a big cart with the famous, awe-inspiring beacon of all ducks sitting on a silver platter right next to your table. The man reveals a giant cleaver from under the cart and begins to cut. The first sliver of meat droops down onto its side and the skin peels from the meat. One of the waiters demonstrates how to eat the duck. She takes the meat, marinates it with sweet sauce and places the meat into a hollow shell of bread. She gives the demonstration to your brother Tuck. “Mmm” Tuck says with his cheeks expanded to full size and chewing on world renowned duck. You and your family all start to craft your own and drop them in your mouths. You come out with the same reply Tuck did. She also shows how to eat the skin. She takes a sliver, dunks it in sugar and gives it to Tuck again. Tuck nods his head in approval and you all try yourselves. You wash down your duck with a swig of ginger ale and soon to come is your next dish!
Man with chef’s hat artfully carving the duck!
The next dish seems to take on some sort of a birds nest form, filled with cubes of duck smeared with sweet sauce. You take a large bite out of the odd looking dish and find that it is actually quite delicious. You chow it down, and your nose takes on a brown color from the sauce of the duck. You grab your ginger ale and tip it into your mouth and all but a pitiful drop enters your dry mouth as your tongue quivers in thirst. You hesitate for a second in panic but you spot a water jug across the table, but the table is much to large to grab it yourself. You shout to your sister to pass the water in an eager tone of voice. She shoots you an evil eye and and you give it right back to her! After you do that about more times, you halt and yell at her to pass the water. She does this time. You dump the remaining water into your glass and spill some onto your plate. You make sure no one is looking and you slurp it off and get a bit of the sweet sauce taste with it.
After ten minuets of sighing and stuffing the last crumbs of duck into your all too populated stomach, your bill arrives. You pay the expensive fee for fine dining and you stand up. You make a long lasting grunt while you spread your arms out and you think of how hard it’s going to be to walk back home with all the weight that you have added to your body.
This was my experience at “Da Dong Famous Braised Sea Cucumber”….we never did order the sea cucumber….I guess we will need to go back 
Even the edamame was served in a very fancy way!
Fancy spread!
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