Thanksgiving dinner in China

Thanksgiving isn't a holiday here in China. The hotel does know it's a holiday in the US though, so one of the restaurants was offering a themed meal option. But it was the hotel's fancy French restaurant. I have a feeling no one else bothered with it. There were only two other parties at dinner, and both of them were large groups of non-American businessmen (a mix of Chinese, European and possibly Middle-Eastern). We were definitely under-dressed for a gourmet meal served by waiters in tails and white gloves. There was even a pianist and violinist providing live music. The place was mostly empty though. So I'm sure the staff didn't really care how we dressed as long as they got some customers on a slow Thursday night!

My Thanksgiving dinner:

• Garlic Toast
  
• Water
  
• Diet Coke for me, Regular Coke for Billy
  
• Bread Basket (variety of rolls and bread sticks with butter and olive grape spread)
  
• Crawfish bisque (served in a shot glass on a ceramic flower)
  <--- Up until this point we hadn't actually ordered any food yet
  <--- Special Thanksgiving fixed course menu starts here
  
• Fruity red wine
  
• Pumpkin soup (served in a mini-pumpkin)
  
• Crab leg with black pepper breading and salad with balsamic dressing
  
• Lemon sherbet (served in a tiny bowl perched on top of an ice filled champagne flute that glowed blue from a blue light-up fake icecube)
  
• Glazed duck with black truffles and mashed potatoes
  
• Tea for me, hot cocoa for Billy
  
• Dessert platter with mini carrot cake, pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, cheesecake
  
• More tea and cocoa
  
• Jelly filled chocolates served on oatmeal cookie squares
  
• Still more tea and cocoa (they keep bringing it til you make them stop)
  

We were both stuffed by the end. I liked everything except the crab, the pumpkin pie, and the chocolate cake. Billy liked everything except the crawfish bisque and the chocolate cake. The pumpkin soup and the duck were awesome.

We were there for about 2 hours, and they were serving us food and drinks the entire time. We could have stayed and they would have kept bringing us more drinks, but we were stuffed and tired. Dinner was, obviously, very expensive. Luckily, it'll go on the expense report. But I can't feel too bad about spending so much -- we deserve some sort of compensation for missing Thanksgiving at Grandma's house!