Bitter about everything
(Chairman Mao’s: Suzhou, China)
Here’s another image of the Chairman Mao restaurant in Suzhou. I never manage to have much opportunity to take pictures, but thankfully last night I managed this one of the meal and one of the many wall paintings in the interior. Perhaps you can appreciate how rustic the place has been engineered to look. We were there last night with friends for a ‘Murder Mystery Dinner’, a bizarre event marrying a seventeen dish Chinese dinner with (mostly American style) amateur dramatics. It was a lot of fun, if a little stereotyped and cliché.
For the sake of general interest, I’d like to tell you about my heatiness / pine nut incident. It was a traditional meal last weekend (just prior to the Dragon boating) that has left my taste sense impaired all week. This perhaps sounds completely bizarre, but since last Monday, every single thing I have eaten or drunk has a very bitter aftertaste. It began when I mentioned to Ying that our breakfast toast was very bitter and he glanced at me quizzically. After a brief panic, I consulted Ying’s dad, my mum and the internet. I have gathered it could be a range of terminal illnesses (which I have discounted for the moment), ingestion of bad Chinese pine nuts or being too ‘heaty’. It could be a blend of the latter two and in that case, it may take a fortnight to recover from this unpleasant but otherwise painless affliction. Thankfully it has begun to wear off somewhat, though I imagine it will take another week to disappear entirely.
Sorry for the weekend silence once again. I was working – a surprise phone call from my employer on Friday afternoon laid out a working weekend and the deadline looms ever nearer. Back to it…
I remember its rustic charm well, I do hope it was several degrees warmer than the night we went.
Love auntie Jane