IUP Welcome Dinner

The summer program that I'm at had a welcome dinner to let us mingle with our classmates for the next 2 months. We had a total of 51 students that showed up for the meal. The dinner was on campus at Tsinghua University at a restaurant called Xichunuan that served "upscale" Hangzhou and Sichuan cuisine. The program directors decided to feed us a good meal since we would be giving up our next 2 months to solely hammer Mandarin into our heads 24/7.

This place was pretty fancy considering it was on campus excluding the slippery floor signs of course!

They had a map of the Tsinghua University campus on the floor, which reminded me of the Getty Center in L.A. Too bad we weren't back in L.A...the land where toilets were clean and toilet paper was provided for you.

This was a pork appetizer dish. It was basically a cold cut dish. Yum.

This was some sort of egg appetizer. I didn't like it. No bueno.

Cold Noodles. Something you can't go wrong with!

I forgot what this was called in English but it was tasty as well unlike the next dish...

Mash potatoes with blueberry sauce on top? Uh... no. Pancakes would have been a much better choice or IHOP.

Then we had a whole fish marinated in tomato sauce and spices.

This was like a corn and pea "pancake." Not my taste, but it wasn't that bad.

This was the most "normal" dish we had. Beef and peas. Reminded me of good ol' Panda Express. I wanted a fortune cookie after eating it.

Shrimp was a little bland.

More celery. This is my grandma's favorite dish. It's too healthy for my taste.

More meat! This wasn't bad.

Yay! They served us kao ya. Wasn't as good as 鴨黃 from the other day, but it was good enough for the moment.

Clams and steamed egg didn't hit the spot for me. Some of my classmates really enjoyed it though.

These made me miss the San Gabriel Valley. Shallot pancakes weren't good. They were squishy and not crunchy enough.

Please no more veggies!

And of course we had to have a soup! A real Chinese family style meal wouldn't be complete without one.

大餅. Score! This was what I stuffed myself with. I guess I'm a cheap date since I stuffed myself with all the bread and didn't really eat much of anything else.

Overall, this was a good place to have a welcome dinner since we had so many students. The food wasn't horrific. The best advice is to go in with little or no standards and you will never be disappointed! Kidding aside, this place wasn't bad. I was just ready to leave campus and start searching Beijing for more 地道的菜 (authentic street food). Little did I know that our Chinese program was going to be kicking our asses so badly that I would not have ample time to go out and explore good Beijing street food everyday.

Happy Eatings! More Beijing adventures to come!

Bye or as they say in mandarin 拜拜 (bai bai)!