Sunday evening, 4 January 2004 1—Dinner At The New Italian Restaurant
Chen Liqi took us to a new Italian restaurant in Xiamen, the Café Relax. It had recently been started by a friend of his from Beijing, and he wanted to give his students an experience in Western dining. So we went, and sampled several of their dishes.
Here is the sign for the cafe. It has two floors. We went up to the second.
We ordered three different small pizzas, plus soup, french fries, and a couple of other small things. The guy on the left is Zhan Liyang, a new graduate student of Liqi's. The others, you know. Johnnie was taking the picture.
Here is the main serving counter. You can see pastries to the left, and a menu of coffees and other drinks above it.
Chen Liqi with Li Linmei, also of the Third Institute, and her son.
The three of us plus another friend.
What's a coffee shop without coffee? We tried various types after the mean. It's the Western way, you know! Actually, I had a lot of fun showing my friends how to dine in the Western way. It was also a nice relief to see others struggling with knife and fork instead of me struggling with chopsticks! At the end of the meal, one of them said to me, "So this is what Western dining is like. I had only read about it in books before."