Another thing that's unusual to me is that it's totally normal to leave the table and the restaurant to go get something to drink. On Chinese New Years Eve, Raymond got up to go across the street and returned with a couple 2-liter bottles of soda that we drank using their glasses. Totally normal.
The personal plates that each person eats off always show up shrink wrapped together in a bundle, and disposable chopsticks come with each meal. Just about the only thing that American Chinese food and native Chinese food have in common are that they are both served with disposable chopsticks.
Before I flew out, I kind of expected to see exotic meats being served all over the place, and in Beijing it was surprisingly common to see street vendors serving weird stuff. One of the alleys in Beijing was packed with carts serving bizarre food - skewered scorpions, seahorses, rat, lizard, larvae, and snake were all there. I tried to get a video of it; the scorpions were still moving on their skewers and were cooked to order. I tried skewered snake and it was pretty good, although a little overseasoned with cumin.
All in all, the food is good but mostly just foreign. To me, the best culinary experience is when I start craving something specific and then satisfy that with something that knocks it out of the park. Here, that doesn't happen, it's totally different. Not to be misunderstood as me not liking it, because I really genuinely enjoy trying new food out, but it's a different kind of experience. It's cheap and exciting to try new dishes out, but I never know what to expect when I take that first bite.
