Suzhou Teppanyaki

After a few hours of walkng around in theintense humid heat, we were ready for lunch.  Luckily for me (unlucky for my coworkers), the first restaurant in the Wester listings for Suzhou, was Suzhou Royal House French Teppanyaki (Fifth floor International Building No. 200 Xinghai Street Suzhou tel: 05126256-7579).  We were off!  It was a very long ride, and I was not convinced it was worth it.

When we arrived, we were escorted to a small private room with a classy hibatchi table in the middle.




Look at all that classiness

 

A chef walked in and started his magic.



Action chef


The first course was a steamed egg with small pieces of seared goose liver and a generous scoop of caviar.  The flavor was so soft and delicate.  It was very balanced and the flavor just grew with each bite.


First course



The second course was a pretty tasty seafood soup.  The base was a thick tomato broth.  It was obviously made from fresh tomatoes.  As you can see below, there was shrimp, clams, fish, etc. for seafood.

Dirty bowl :(

While we are eating, we get to see the chef in action.



Miles, look at how cute those little pots are!



For the third course, I had a king prawn with a mustard caviar sauce.  There was also fresh broccoli and tomatoes.  I thought the mustard caviar sauce was so original and delicious.  There was just a hint of each flavor.

Third course

The next course was the salad course.  Now, itis important to know two things... First, Chinese people NEVER eat raw veggetable.  NEVER EVER.  Second, the word salad is used more loosely here.



Everyone needs to eat some salad


The salad was all small pieces of fruit stuffed into a tomato.  The tomatoes here are so good.  None of that gased crap here.  Okay back to the fruit.  There was mellon, kiwi, dragon fruit, and some others we could  not identify.  the dressing was a very strange orange dressing.  It wasn't bad, just sweet on sweet.

Now time for the main course, STEAK!  Below you will see an action shot of my steak with its brothers and sisters, getting ready to do god's work.



Getting drooly

 After being cooked for about a minute, the steak was medium, and ready to eat.  It was served with pepper salt and chunks of grilled garlic.



Steak for my grill piece

 These are some toppings for the steak:  Tofu  and vinigar onions

Steak toppings

The food just kept coming.  Up next, fresh made fried rice.  At first I was dubious as the rice had been premixed with the egg.  The final product however, was really good.




Fried rice

 Here is our veggetable side.  It is some sort of Chinese cabbage with a really nice mushroom sauce.  The was perfectly seasoned.

Never ever raw

Of course, no meal is complete without dessert.  I picked the creme burle.  It was awesome.  More like flan, but still totally worth making room for.
 

Sweet ending



Magical chef

The best part of the meal was that it cost only a little bit more than Chili's would have cost in the United States. 

Overall, my meal was wonderful.  In the end, both the foodies and the non-foodies were happy.  If ever in Suzhou and looking for a unique expereince, I would really recommend heading off the beaten path and over to this place.