Dumpling Banquet

Stuffed, completely stuffed. Lily gave us a map of Xi'An and armed with that we set off to find one of the recommended places to eat - De Fa Chang - navigation is interesting because unsurprisingly they dont put names in the European alphabet...so we followed the instructions, got to the right area but seemed to be at a sort of dumpling MacDonald - bright pictures over cash registers..so we wandered out to the next restaurant similar but not dumplings, we must have looked like dumplings because a helpful person pointed us back to the one we had just left...we went back and stared at that one through the windows and then noticed people were coming down from upstairs - so we went for a look. An enormous dumpling restaurant!

We had a choice of 2 menus - so we picked the cheapest! Pomegranate juice was recommended by our server as a drink - nice but very sweet! and we waited. First out was a selection of largely unidentifiable vegetables and some weird chewy meat with gelatine... a slightly unnerving start but we are brave ..so we waited.
Round one one was a fried meat dumpling each and a sweet fried persimmon dumpling each. Next we had a "cereal" dumpling (rice in a black, licorice flavoured dough) and two other sorts from there they cam thick and fast including a plate of plain meat dumplings - about 8 each. The rest were in ones and two..but there were 6 courses. And at that point we were stuffed and we could see the watermelon for desert waiting for us. But no, out came a brass pot on a burner - there was yet another course. This final one was a lucky dip soup cooked at the table...we had to wait for it to cook and our server added small raw dumplings. Once cooked she explained that the number of dumplings you got in your bowl told your fortune 1- for happiness, 2 for double happiness, 3 for wealth, 4-6 I got promotion, dad got double happiness. Utterly stuffed.. we wobbled home via the 24hr shop (for beer - Dad didn't want 2 dry nights). I might have been tempted by wine but it was £8-23 a bottle! Four beers and a tube of pringle like snacks was £2.40!Read more