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[Updated] Xinjiang riot leaves scores dead
The Xinjiang Riots: What's happened so far
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Photos here and hereRecently we've had the pleasure of dining in two local restaurants in Qingpu Town, technically part of Shanghai but very close to Jiangsu Province, and both times our plates, bowls, cups and spoon came vacuum packed in plastic, supposedly "sanitized" for our pleasure. We had never seen this before, despite having dined at our fair share of greasy spoons throughout the country. But the folks we ate with last night said plastic wrapped tableware is actually quite common, not only in Qingpu, but in Chongqing and other cities throughout China. Is this true? Have we totally missed the trend toward the restaurant equivalent of the plastic covered couch? It just looks so classy. If it is a trend, can it survive the upcoming plastics ban?
We'd like to see a Mythbusters episode test whether tableware packed in this manner is actually cleaner than the stuff we normally use in restaurants. Or maybe that's a bad idea. The results would probably lead us to avoid eating out altogether. And we don't cook much.
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There's a hot pot restaurant near the Dongchang Road subway station that does the same thing.
I know of one restaurant in Beijing that does this, a good, moderate-price place.
I also came across this near Dongchang Road.. I was with Chinese coworkers who asked for regular dishes (no charge), but I'd already opened mine. Their dishes looked identical :)
This is everywhere now in Shenzhen (started last year). It always costs at least an extra 1 kuai per set. I'm really not sure how sanitary it is... I'll ask my friend who's starting a business with it in Xinjiang. Personally, I think it's just a waste.
Saw this in a pretty upscale Cantonese restaurant in Nanjing, but doesn't seem too common here.
I've seen this a couple times in Shanghai. Forget where tho. Hopefully they won't feel the need to serve the food like this as well.
It looks tacky and cheap ( thank goodness...shanghai meiyou!) Why not bust out with covered plastic chairs while at it :)
I came across this in place in Guilin where we had horse dumplings.
I have seen this in Shenyang and every restaurant in Hainan has this. Some of these supposedly sanitized wrapped dishes in Sanya were actually much dirtier than the standard unwrapped dish, so buyer beware.
Hotpot place on Fan Yu Rd. does this as well. Charged 2 kuai per set. Pissed me off because I just wanted regular plates and could have sanitized them myself by dumping them in the boiling hot pot. But I got them back by taking all the beer bottles I drank at the place and selling them myself.
The wrap thing is in a bunch of hotpot restaurants aroudn the Dingxi Lu area.
Why does this mean the plates, etc. are any cleaner? I'm guessing it's just like the "sanitized for your protection" thingies that used to be put on toilet seats in motels, which just meant someone had put one of those thingies on the seat, not that the seat had actually been cleaned.
I have no connection to this blog, but I love it so much I have to plug it. It's called barfblog and it's on food safety and it is riviting. Check it out here: http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/
When I visited Beiheide about 6 months ago all of the restaurants catering to tourists near the beaches used this plastic-covered setup. Being a tourist trap, I think they charged 2 or 3 kuai per set.
From Matt in Chongqing:
It's Pan Yu Lu not Fan Yu Lu!! :)
Well, considering the package in te photo clearly shows the origin of this particular pack was in Shanghai (address on HuQingPing Highway) and lists a retail price of 1.5 yuan for teh package, anyone that gets charged more is getting ripped. The package also says something about the items within have been treated at 380˚and exposed to infared radiation to disinfect them. Oh well, who knows right?
Hey Bumix
The character can be read either way and it 'pans' out like this:
It is supposed to be Panyu and is named after a city in Guangdong. That's right.
However, almost everyone who is Shanghainese uses the 'fan' pronunciation in practice to the point where taxi drivers and locals mainly don't kno what you're talking about when you say 'Panyu Lu'.
Eventually they click and go "ahhh! FANyu Lu".
So if you lived here a while and follow the local ways on langauge and habits you eventually go with Fanyu.
That's a longwinded way of saying that I didn't make an unintentional mistake. :)
You can also find a similar post/analysis on the famous blog of Wang Jianshuo ...check it out.
And ..by the way, that post is more for the benefit of general readers than you, yourself as I got the smilie use at the end :)