I had two fascinating trips recently to Dalian, China. Dalian is a major city on the coast of China not far from Beijing. It’s not well known in the US but for Chinese it is famous as a coastal resort, and for Japanese it’s famous for being a good place to go for a golf weekend. For me, it’s a somewhat industrialized city with business opportunity and a very nice downtown that has served me well for hosting business meetings with the team from greater China. 

Dalian does not seem to have an ancient tradition like Beijing but it certainly is a bustling metropolis. Along with blocks and blocks of apartment buildings, Dalian has a large number of parks, squares, and open spaces that are well tended though usually filled with people talking and relaxing. The hotels are modern and very inexpensive, and driving around at night I am impressed by the lights, the activity, and the variety of places that look like fun places to visit or shop in. Not far from the Interstate 55 restaurant and the Salve Jazz bar, I’ve recently had the chance to visit the Tai Bei 1+1 restaurant in Dalian.

The first surprise is the giant faux German castle that is built nearby the restaurant which serves as a seashell museum, or so I am told. Also nearby is an amusement park which seems to feature a recreation of the Space Shuttle along with a hot air balloon which looks like a huge soccer ball. I’ve been to this restaurant 3 or 4 times now, and the food is quite good. But it wasn’t until my last visit that I had a chance to look at the menu.

The menu is quite extensive and has listings in both Mandarin and English. Along with the usual 47 varieties of seafood and a good selection of abalone and eel, it was the English names for several menu items that really caught my eye. This is an actual and unretouched listing of items that were listed on the menu -- I am not making this up, as several eyewitnesses will attest:

• Wild herd fried with farm eggs’

• Cluster fried tend

• Soft sheep bam

• Simple parching vegetable core

• Mixed with home

• Chives sikwom

• Cutlet like airing clothes

• Fresh spuid kidneys

• Ling code and yellow

• Large intestine plate

• Homemade holothuria

• Acerbic fry meat

• Pickle stew pig’s ancon

• Sea slug pot porcine abdomen

• Best old duck

• Flood unresrine quick boiled fat

• Stewed pork mixed with home

• Leg cooked in stone pot old bacon

• Catching jcake

• Cake mixed with green onion and fat

• Pasty of leek and egg

• Pig’s fammy mixed with bry sesame paste

• Smoded young pigeon

• Bowed

• Crystal pig sdin jellied

Now doesn’t that make you want to rush right out and try it?

Actually the restaurant is quite good. For all I know I’ve had several of these items. The restaurant was puzzled, then annoyed that I would not return their menu to them after we ordered, and the serving staff was visibly distressed that I was writing down things on a piece of paper. Probably I seemed like an industrial spy of some type. But I couldn’t resist and wanted to share this list with you -- its a classic!