Shanghainese,
Thanks for the description. Such a unique dish.

Shanghainese, the story I heard was that a Good Samaritan type found the beggar starving to death on the shore of West Lake, and cooked him a meal out of the available ingredients - a fire, a chicken bought from a nearby farmer, clay and lotus leaves. Either way it's a great dish.

We ate in a large, very popular restaurant close to the lakeshore and had Beggar's Chicken which I think (but now can't be 100% sure) may have used a stiff bread dough instead of clay. It was excellent, anyway. We also had the Dong Po Pork, my memory of which is a piece of belly pork oven-roasted in a ramekin with a savoury sauce. There was also a very good whole fish in a brown sauce which I believe is also a Hangzhou regional specialty.

A word of warning for would-be home chefs - I had a go at cooking Beggar's Chicken from a recipe I found on the Web that used stiff bread dough and greaseproof paper. The dough has to be made using a LOT of salt, and my effort was a disaster because I didn't isolate the chicken from the dough well enough. The result was that the sauce inside the chicken leached out into the dough and returned laden with salt.

Thanks Neil, for the update.

Hmmm... seems making these dishes at home could be very difficult.

Guess that means another trip to China to get a chance to enjoy it again!!

bookmarking

Just wanted to post an update. I just saw that Tiger Direct did give me a refund for the cell phone that didn't work in China. Thanks, rkkwan for all of your help!! They refunded all but the shipping and handling which is reasonable. I'm pleased! Thanks to you all for encouraging me to pursue this!

How did you get from city to city?

We flew from from Beijing to Xian, then flew from Xian to Hangzhou, then private van from Hangzhou to Shanghai.

Lost in China: That's relaly great news! So glad you got your phone problems resolved!

For some reason, I didn't get to read the last few posts until just now. Boy! All that talk about Beggar's Chicken and Dongpo Pork sure is making me hungry!

I'll repeat Shanghainese's invitation - when you come to San Francisco, we'll go to a good Chinese restaurant!

Thanks for posting a very interesting and informative trip report!

You're welcome, easytraveler!! Thanks for all your help before we left!

I was happy to get the refund. It did take some perserverence!

BTW, easytraveler, thanks for the invite. You are very kind!