I’m attending the 2008 China International Food & Tourism Festival (CIFT) which started today in Wenshuyuan Street, Chengdu. CIFT is sponsored by China National Tourism Administration, China Council of International Trade and Chengdu Municiple People’s Goverment. The festival themed “Food of Sichuan”will last for a month and is the longest in history. Food from other 12 districts are joining the food testing activities too.

Chinese steam buns stuffed with hot soup and meat and/or vegetarian fillings

Chinese sausage and dried meat.

Bugs… insects… I beg you won’t eat this! You have probably seen this in Beijing or Thailand.

More photos…

People in Chengdu are more relax and enjoy life more than Shanghainese and Beijingers. I was surprised at how modern Chengdu was with its skyline. I love to sit at the balcony in the morning and watch those peoples on their bikes going to work.

Since the Sichuan earthquake 4 months ago, Chengdu came into attention once again, not because of the quake, but a series of exhibition, forums and festivals to showcase its new image to the world and to help recover its industries that were effected by the quake.

Yesterday Ron and I went for Hong Kong Cuisine along Dingxi road as I need to go to my bank to get some stuff done. We have been to this place before and the grilled pork was not bad. The service was… well… no comments.

This time though, the very gruff waitress kinda got onto our nerves. Good service in Shanghai is really very very very rare.

We ordered some famous HongKong dishes and a bowl of fish congee. The picture in the menu was rather appetizing with slice fish, nuts and you-tiao (or Chinese cruller). The waitress taking our order immediately snapped “Oh…. There will be no you-tiao in the porridge”. Despite the small disappointment, we were prepared to let it go.

waitress: zhe ge mei you yiu-tiao de ah… (There is no chinese cruller in this congee)

me: wei shen me? (why?)

w: wo men yi kai shi jiu mei you de ya! (We never put chinese cruller in our congee when we started selling!)

me: na wei shen me zhao pian li mian you? (Why is it in the photo?)

w: <<<MEI YOU JIU MEI YOU!!!!!!!!>>> (DON’T HAVE MEANS DON’T HAVE!!!!!)

me: na jiu bu yao fang zhao pian ah!?!? (Don’t show it in the photo then!?!?)

w: …

Why bother to show the photos in the menu when you are not selling the actual stuff. It can be misleading and even if there are any misunderstandings, a polite explanation would have been enough. We find it ok if they have no more yiu-tiao, but they insisted that this ingredient was not included from when they started business!?!?!

Things in China are improving and some things here are way better than they are in other parts of the globe. Service line isn’t one of them! Lesson that we’ve learnt, never trust a photo in a menu and don’t have means DON’t HAVE!

This is what Ajisen Ramen’s fried mussels looks like in the picture:

This is what Ajisen Ramen’s fried mussels looks when it was served:

I still recall the first time we dined in a South East Asian restaurant in Raffles Place, People’s Square. The food and atmosphere was average. It was an incident that left a deep impression. A local couple ordered Indonesian pineapple rice and when it arrived, they complained loudly to the waiter that the dish was different from the picture in the menu. Finally the cook came along, apologized and took the dish back. I could not imagine this scene happening back home.

I saw this happened a few times in Shanghai actually. Initially I could not understand all this fuss until Ron and I had lunch at Ajisen. We ordered ramen and some fried dumplings. The fried mussels really looked big and delicious and we ordered this dish. And then the mussels arrived. What the heck! These tiny little mussels were not look appetizing at all.

Guess we finally understand how that couple felt. Being the “peaceful” type of people, we did not make a big fuss but quietly noted it down in our “Never make this mistake again” list!