"It's so much easier to go out ！ especially if you have as many people as we
do."
Dishes are full of symbolic meaning: noodles represent longevity, fish for
wealth and round foods, like meat balls, emphasize togetherness. The menu
usually has one or two high-priced delicacies like abalone or sharks' fin to
make the occasion more memorable.
The Lao Zhengxing banquet features a soup with a hair-like black sea moss
whose name in Mandarin sounds the same as the phrase "get rich."
Among the other rarities offered are, a "three-headed" Japanese abalone,
which cost US$2,400 each and 50-year-old Pu'er tea from southern Yunnan
province.
The price is so high, the restaurant manager said, because the ingredients
are rare and come from the restaurant owner's private collection.
"We have enough only for about 20 to 24 people," said the manager, who would
give only his surname, Li. "It will take at least another five years to collect
them again."
So far, there's been one taker for the banquet, a Hong
Kong businessman who is an old friend of the restaurant owner, Li said.
Quan Ju De, a popular roast duck chain in Beijing, is attracting more
customers, with its most expensive holiday menu, which feeds 10 for about
US$1,000. The holiday menu includes Australian scallops, bird's nest and of
course, duck.
Quan Ju De packs them in: One branch seats 900 people and is filled with
white-cloth topped tables and red velvet chairs, with bunches of firecrackers on
pillars. Photos of President Bush, Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro line the walls
！ all said to be among the restaurant's customers.
The Chinese zodiac
moves in a 12-year cycle named after animals, starting with the Year of the Rat
and ending with the Year of the Pig, which falls in 2007. According to that
series, this is the Year of the Dog.
Editor: Cindy
