Expensive Lunch

Last Saturday, Craig and Graham's Aunty Jessie (aka Yu-fang) very kindly offered to buy lunch for the extended family. Craig's Dad reckons she must be rich because the place they went to was rather exclusive. Shi-Yang Restaurant doesn't have a sign beside the road where you turn off into its car park and reservations must be made in advance. It is located up in the mountains and also only serves set meals that look pretty fancy.

The first thing to arrive was juice in tiny cups. There were six cups on these two trays but five were taken away before Dad could take a picture.

A lot of attention was paid to the look of the food. Although there wasn't much in each dish there was around nine dishes in each set meal so no-one went hungry.

Graham's booster chair had to be to tied down so that he faced sideways because of the funny bench seats but he was quite happy.

Craig sat with Great Aunt From the Fifth Floor. She did a great job of feeding Craig even though most of the food was not suited to children's taste buds at all. Plenty of picking and choosing needed to be done to keep the little ones happy.

Every dish was beautifully prepared.

The photos don't show it but it was raining quite steadily outside. Meanwhile, the atmosphere inside the restaurant was very peaceful. There was really no better place to be in the world on a rainy day.

This was dessert--a serving for four adults of a sweet soup.

And there was fruit to finish.

While the adults finished eating and then continued chatting, Craig pretended to be a Chinese philosopher.

And he spent some time playing with his cousins Soit-Jade and Yu-chi.

Back at home in the evening, Craig began feeling underappreciated whenever his parents were playing with Graham. So, when Craig's Dad tried to cheer him up by reading to him from a football magazine, Craig was happy to lie down and listen. He cheered up very quickly even though he wasn't really interested in Dad's boring football stuff.