Revolutionary dinner parties
I’ve been going through some old notebooks, and found an account of a supper I had in 2005 at a crazy Chengdu restaurant called ‘The mess canteen 伙食团’. Its name was a reference to the mess canteens of the revolutionary era, and all the dishes on the menu were named after revolutionary slogans. So you could order ‘The fragrant grasslands 芳è‰åœ°’ (a lettuce stem salad), ‘Years and years of peace å²å²å¹³å®‰’ (stir-fried long beans with minced chicken), ‘Chaos 乱七八糟’ (stir-fried chicken offal), ‘Atom bombs 原åå¼¹’  (meatballs), or – my favourites – ‘Fire-exploded embassy ç«çˆ†å¤§ä½¿é¦† or ‘Dry-fried embassy 干煸大使馆’.
All the waiters and waitresses were kitted out in army gear, and announced the arrival of new guests with a loudhailer. The boss (who you can see in the picture above, with me), was known as the ‘Village Chief’, and prefaced every sentence he uttered with a line from Mao’s little red book.
The restaurant originally occupied a sort of shack in an alley opposite the Sheraton Hotel, but later moved to a new location (pictured). Does anyone know if it’s still there, somewhere?
4 Responses to “Revolutionary dinner parties”
Ha ha ha! I guess uniquely themed restaurants are a far east thing. In the city where i live (in Japan) there are such crazy restaurants like the Christmas restaurant. I’ve never personally been there myself, but I’ve heard it’s very interesting.
I hear (but never went to) a ‘Red Army Restaurant’ in Chengdu – wonder if it’s the same one…
Jessie –
I think you’d recognise the ‘Village Chief’ if it was the same one!
Yes, I remember this fellow – he originally was in a shack down an alley off Renmin Zhonglu opposite the soccer stadium – in Yanshikou before they demolished the neighborhood for something else; I lived upstairs in an apartment from his place… Very interesting and yummy restaurant concept, even if a bit more pricey than other things for offer in the neighborhood. If I recall, the hongzhadashiguan (red-cooked pig intestines) didn’t work for my palate, but the baijiu pickled with herbs/spices was in fact quite nice.