I arrived in sleepy Ningbo late on Sunday night, and after a long stroll around Half Moon Park, a couple cups of tea beside the lake and a cheap (15 kuai!) foot massage, I realized that I had forgotten something: Dinner. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to eat in Ningbo after 11pm, at least where I was staying. There ARE countless crayfish shops (which are probably only outnumbered here by hair salons – the kind where they actually do cut hair).

There’s an ancient saying that goes like this: “When the cool moon shines in Ningbo, the people eat freshwater lobsters. Then they get a hair wash in their pyjamas and go to sleep.” Or something like that.

Anyways, I don’t eat crayfish in China because I occasionally go to wholesale seafood markets and I’ve seen and smelled these mud bugs before they’re washed and boiled. I think it’s sensible not to. So I ambled back to the Crowne Plaza (nice save for the steel-clad mattresses), ordered a cheeseburger, and switched on CNN (sorry if that offends anyone).

Forty minutes later this is what I got:



I took a bite, and to my horror I had a soft, cool mouthful of totally raw beef in my mouth. In my starving state, this was highly disturbing. After berating the front desk, and pleading with the boy they sent to my room to give me something edible soon, I was treated to a very decent bowl of wontons. It turns out that it was the night chef’s first day, and, as the waiter shamefully admitted the chef had never cooked a hamburger before.
I guess that’s that's the price you pay for not eating seafood in Ningbo.

Next up: Things that were good to eat in this formidable food town.