Dinner in Guilin

We walked around the park for a little bit after seeing the caves but then had to get back in our car to go to dinner. We went to dinner with some more people from the university and had another private room – this restaurant, Taste Made, was also hosting a big wedding reception on the first floor:

The bride and groom were passing out cigarettes and candy at the receiving line – I thought it was incredibly weird, but apparently you pass out cigarettes to increase the bride’s fertility (although I’m pretty sure that smoking decreases fertility, but I digress).

Inside our private room, we were given all types of glasses for drinking – this time, the men were drinking white liquor to celebrate our arrival:

They did shots throughout the meal and my mom even participated in some of the group shots. Also, people walk up to you and ask you to take a shot with them (you can’t refuse because it’s considered disrespectful) and you end up getting pretty drunk if you’re not eating enough food at the same time. Everyone really loved taking shots with David because it seemed like he *couldn’t* get drunk – some of the university officials loved it so much that they invited us out to drink AFTER dinner, too! Okay, onto more dinner shots:

We started off with wood ear mushrooms with garlic:

Cold preparation of lamb with Chinese mustard:

Mountain yam:

Mustard greens:

Beef shank with bamboo (one of my favorites):

Steak on the bone (they actually cut up the steak into individual pieces and then put it back together on the bone for an interesting presentation):

Pork on the bone:

Water chestnuts:

Fish soup with fermented vegetables:

Tofu with vegetables:

Another preparation of goose:

After the initial serving of the fish soup with fermented vegetables, the waiter brings in noodles to soak up the soup and to prepare another dish – noodle soup:

Braised tofu with carrots:

Chinese spinach:

Another preparation of the dessert buns:

For dessert, they brought the “fruits of a harvest” – corn, water chestnuts, baby taro, peanuts, and yams:

After dinner, we went to the university for a little bit and then were driven back to our hotel (we were heading to Chongqing the next morning). Before heading in for the night, one of the university professors invited us out for drinks and congee – pictures tomorrow!