Restaurants

There are restaurants to cater to just about every taste. There are Argentinian restaurants, where beef, raw, grilled, or baked, is in effect the only ingredient, and vegan restaurants, where you can only order a variety of…well… vegan stuff ( I do not really care or know much about these vegan places, so I leave it as such).

Between these extremes, there is a lot of variety, when it comes to the quality, prices, and cuisines of restaurants. For fast food there is always a Mcdonald’s within 5 kilometers; the price is low, the quality is questionable but children love it. And you have your high-end five-star Michelin Guide restaurant, where thee peas and a sliver of bacon cost an average monthly wage.

Kind of restaurants

You have restaurants that are based on national cuisines, like French, Italian, Greek, Thai, or Chinese restaurants. If you are a bit more adventurous, you may even try a Lebanese or Nigerian restaurant.

Did you notice by the way there are no British or American restaurants? There is an obvious reason for that …

Then you have your Japanese sushi bars, where they don’t even bother to cook the fish, which is quite lazy if you ask me- although some sushi bars offer the possibility to eat your uncooked fish remains of the body of a naked woman; in most cases, these living plates are attractive young students. At least, that is what every man is hoping for…

And of course, there are the middle-of-the-road restaurants, where you can eat as much as you want, but do not have to pay your life savings when the bill comes.

But, as I said, restaurants cater to almost every taste. And when I say every taste, I mean EVERY taste.

A special restaurant

Because there is a restaurant in Beijing, called Ghuolizhuang, that serves a clientele that is quite specific in its…erm… let’s call them preferences. Let me explain.

At Ghuolizhuang, every dish you order is made from animal genitalia.  Of about thirty species of animal penises, testicles, ovaria, and the likes are on the menu, although some are not recommended to women to consume; because “tiger penis can give women a lower, manly voice, and a beard”, as the additional information on the menu tells us. The concept of this restaurant is of course based on the ancient Chinese belief (or superstition) that when a man eats certain foods, it will strengthen his masculinity; the tiger penis is, therefore, one of the highest prized dishes. Eating at Ghuolizhuang is, not really surprisingly, quite expensive; a plate of Tiger Balls will cost you thousands of dollars.

So if you ever go dine at Ghuolizhuang in Beijing and anyone asks how that was, you can honestly say it was bollocks.  Please do not forget to bring a peppermill filled with Penja pepper with you, this will help you go through this peculiar experience.