Campus lunch - not as bad as advertised!

My new colleague and I had been warned, by students, by Chinese colleagues, by Western colleagues: Don't eat at the university cafeteria. The food is terrible. So we stayed away. And we stayed away. And we tried the other three restaurants near campus. And we stayed away.

Our Chinese colleague and lunch buddy, kept asking us "have you tried the cafeteria?" We finally agreed to go. And were pleasantly surprised. The trick is not to go to the first floor, but to the partitioned off section of the second floor where you get a menu and table service!

We ordered a lamb dish, with potatoes and beans in a soup. Omelette with shallots, pumpkin fries and an eggplant dish.

The pumpkin fries had been recommended by a colleague. I quite liked them. The pumpkin here is very nice, the same taste and quality you get in Australia, nothing like the bland, tasteless excuse for pumpkin you get in London. The batter is done with preserved duck egg yolk and some kind of flour, so the flavour is quite strong and salty. They often come served with sprinkles on top – the same sprinkles you put on fairy bread. Random!

The eggplant in China is fantastic! I keep trying to replicate it at home and failing utterly. Whenever I try to stir fry eggplant I get an undercooked gloopy mess. This was perfectly cooked, with the eggplant in discrete bits, I guess cooked first, then fried separately, then added to the dish? Must find convenient Chinese friend who can cook eggplant and show me the secret. Hmm....who to ask?

I think we will return to the university cafeteria!