Food for plenty of thought in China

Pig's feet in broth, sir?

What about whole baked turtle, still in its shell?

Time for a taste of the local cuisine, so it was off to Houhai, one of Beijing's more popular restaurant /bar /nightclub locations.

The central focus of the area is a lake, which is surrounded by a mix of eating options. The Hakka restaurant is a large operation, indoors and out, perched on the edge of the lake, on which pedal boats tootle about.

You want to eat local, then go to a place at which absolutely no English is spoken, not even a broken "thank you". Our efforts to fit in probably sounded like a bad case of 'Allo 'Allo - "thonk yin and gid boy".

A perusal of the menu offered up a range of delicacies and for one of our number, a man of very specific tastes, it was particularly challenging.

Fishheads, eyes staring balefully up, especially troubled him.

But it all ended well, with a mix of rice, noodles, duck, pork and assorted side dishes.

Early on, the waitress came over. By means of sign language and stabbing at one line on the docket she'd written, it was clear one item was not available.

"No problem," we said. She insisted we know what tasty treat would not be appearing on our table. She pulled out a pen and started writing on her pad, before triumphantly holding it up for us to read. It was in Chinese.

The toilets were best left unvisited. Suffice to say they were at the opposite end of the scale from the main media centre, where a man follows you in, wipes the hand basins after you and double checks the cubicles between use.

Houhai's park was an interesting snapshot of families at play.

A young girl banged her drums, while men played a makeshift game of badminton. Artists were at work, plying their trade. A large group of assorted locals and tourists were line dancing and a group of teenagers played the local version of hacky sack, called Ti Jianzi, using something that looked like a shuttlecock with feathers and other bits poking out.

Not a sign of English anywhere, apart from tourists' faces gazing about, and then we saw it.

In the heart of a chunk of pure China was Starbucks, with a line of Americans. Gotta love those Yanks.

David Leggat