Recognize the inside of this restaurant?

Look like anything in the US? Sure it does, it looks like a fairly high-end restaurant, right? This is actually a Pizza Hut! A more appropriate name would be Pizza Palace. Pizza Hut is pretty ghetto in the US, as is McDonalds and KFC – all popular (and fancy) restaurants in China. OK, well McDonalds is not that much nicer here in China, but some KFCs are pretty sweet inside (makes sense since KFC and Pizza Hut are owned by the same company). Pizza Hut takes the prize though for opulence. The prices are about 80% of what they are in the US, and the food is generally much better. The pizza is roughly the same (though toppings like shrimp and squid are more common), but better cooked. There are also fancier appetizers to choose from like Calamari and nice soups.

The salad bar is something fun to watch. In China, the all-you-can-eat doesn’t really exist in the same form. It’s all-you-can-eat, but you only get one trip. So, you see people building architectural wonders of food. The first time I went (with Bill and his wife during my first weekend) I saw someone building a small salad in the middle of the plate with columns of cucumbers and honeydew on the outside to support a second story of food. The funny thing is that some of the waitresses will help build the food skyscraper.

Here’s a shot from the outside:

The restaurant is so high end because, relative to Chinese food, it’s quite expensive. I still haven’t figured out the disparity of prices in food in China (probably similar to the disparity of incomes). A meal at Pizza Hut is 2-3 times or more (sometimes much more) than other restaurants. Well, for example, I went to a Hunan restaurant the other night w/ a friend and the meal came to 51 RMB, about $6.50. This was excellent food too, nice and spicy, and plenty of it. Then we went for a dessert at Haagen Daaz and got one serving of the smallest cup of ice cream, one little scoop – 25 RMB. Half the price of the entire meal!