Dinner on Lake Xihai

Fishermen

It was a nice warm evening again, so we decided to have dinner at a restaurant on Lake Xihai. This is just a mile or so north of where we had dinner last Friday on Lake Qianhai, but unlike that area is not inundated with western tourists. Just next to the restaurant fisherman were using long poles fish in the reeds near the inlet to the lake. They were catching quite large fish, as you can see in the next picture. The restaurant we went to is in the background.


Caught One!
The restaurant was right by the lake, with some tables on jetties over the lake, some on floating barges, and even some on boats that were paddled out into the center of the lake after all the dishes had arrived.



Restaurant by the Lake

At many of the restaurants we have been to, a waiter will come with the menus, and then stand by patiently for however long it takes to order, occasionally adding helpful suggestions. Ordering can take a long time even if the menu is in English, since there are usually so many dishes to choose from. The hovering waiter is a little hard to get used to after the American way of doing things!

We ordered a cold dish of "peeled bamboo shoots". It arrived looking like quite inedible 3 inch sticks of bamboo, but eventually we found that you could squeeze out the edible inside by biting down from the center, which turned out to be very good. We also had a mixed vegetable dish including green soy beans, fried noodles with a variety of tidbits, and steamed fish in a brown sauce. Lynn seemed to find all the tiny bones that many of the fresh water fish have, so I didn't get many!


Lynn Choosing from the Menu

The food was maybe not the best we have had, but the location on a warm spring evening was perfect, with an interesting view over the lake. Nearby was another floating bird residence, this one presently occupied by a goose couple.


Goose Residence

As the evening got darker, the lights and lanterns came on, making a pretty scene. Here you can see one of the small boats preparing to leave for the dinner paddle cruise.


Night Scene