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Will be travelling to Hong Kong, Beijing, Xian and Shanghai. Looking for some modest/moderate priced restaurants. Will be staying at the Sheraton in Kowloon, Palace Hotel in Beijing, Hyatt in Xian and Hilton in Shanghai. What are your favorites for dim sum, wonton/noodles, cantonese, western foods?<BR>Thanks much!

Xian is a good place to try some local specialties. We ate at a couple of restaurants in the Drum (or was it Bell?) Tower area. One specialized in dumplings and we had a tasting menu of all different kinds - each had a different ingredient and the outer wrapper was shaped to reflect what was contained inside. Another local specialty is called something like 'pao muo' (I'm not very good with pinyin). And it is basically a mutton soup poured over a shredded bread/cake (you shred it yourself) which soaks up all the soup - very good! I'll look up the names and addresses of the restaurants tonight and post them later. Both were very moderate in price. <BR><BR>When will you be in Shanghai? Fall is the season for hairy crab. Try it if it's available. It's a small, freshwater crab (not a meaty cold water crab) but very tasty. Actually the delicacy is the roe. I believe you'll need to order the female crab for the roe (male crabs are about half the price). We had this several times including at one of the restaurants in the Hyatt, but for someplace more reasonable in cost, try Lu Bo Lang.

The name of the dumpling restaurant in Xian is De Fa Chang. It's located in a building adjacent to the Drum Tower. There's a map that the Hyatt gives out and you can find it listed in the map. The other restaurant (I can't find the name of it now) in Xian that I mentioned is at the opposite end of the same building, so it shouldn't be hard to find. The staff at the Hyatt should also be familiar with the location and be able to guide you.

Everything in Beijing is delicious. I ate the most wonderful lunch of Peking Duck at a restaurant on the site of the National Library of China, near Purple Bamboo Park on Baishiqiao Road. This is also near the Shangri-La hotel. Totally worth it.

Patty, I will be leaving on November 1st. First stop is Shanghai. Thanks for the recommendation. Do you think the crab will be in season?

I'm not exactly sure when the season starts/ends. We were there the last week of October and first week of November last year and it was available, so I would venture to say yes.

I just did an internet search on 'hair crab season in Shanghai' and came up with a couple of good articles you might like to read:<BR><BR>http://www.101hongkong.com/destinations/dining/highlights/index.asp<BR><BR>http://www.expatsingapore.com/Hairycrab.htm<BR><BR>Apparently it's also available in Hong Kong, Singapore and other parts of Asia, but it originates near Shanghai.

just across from the sheraton in HK is the kowloon hotel---owned by the peninsula...in the basement there is a very good restaurant for dim sum...we ate there twice in march on the recommendation of a HK native who owns a restaurant in our hometown<BR>not cheap but very good quality<BR>on hong kong island we ate twice at an italien restaurant in wanchai called Amaroni's little italy---at least one owner is an american...hug portions, but good quality---we loved it for a change<BR>we also went to lanna island via boat from hk island...we ate at the only family owned restaurant (maybe 3rd place after you get off boat) called Tai Yuen Restaurant---stick with the simple stuff, not the lobster , crab etc unless you have a big budget