Imperial Dinner

One night when we had been in Beijing for a couple of days, we decided to break away from the group and go out to a restaurant.This is before we had the babies. Our friend, Sandra(aka Peeps) found it in a travel guide, I believe it may have been called the Imperial, but I'm not sure. The taxi cost about $2 and it seemed like we drove all around the city. We had been a bit disappointed by the food served to the group in the hotel, it seemed "cafeteria style" and very americanized, there was nothing exotic or unique to us. This place was incredible, it was on Beihail Lake, with an impressive entrance manned by guards and women in full traditional dress. We were escorted to the restaurant down a lovely walkway lit by Chinese lanterns. There were meals to choose by the group, in other words, you would order together a "page" from the menu that would be served to us on the center "lazy susan" for evryone. There were 14 courses and it cost about $12 US. Jacqui and I ordered tea and the waitress served it to us in a beautiful, long-spouted teapot.Must have been a hard technique to learn! I am posting and using some pictures taken by Sandra as well as some I took myself. This is the place that offered "Camel Paw, Deer Lips, Deer tendon," and all kinds of crazy sounding stuff. I don't remember exactly what we had (not those things!)but it was all delicious!