Where to start? Out for a quick meal in an outdoor food court in Chengdu, China's most laid-back city, when a fight breaks out. Two guys at the next table get into it with the waiter when a chef arrives brandishing a cleaver. We carried on eating as they fought very poorly (Poor-Li, not Jet Li) crashing into tables, jabbing at each other with stools, semi-punching and rolling around the floor a few feet away. It was only during this period that we confirmed that our picture-based order (our 10 words of Mandarin don't cut it) was of a bowl of frogs. Difficult to tell under the lovely Sichuan spicy sauce, but the bones and the strong thighs confirmed it wasn't the fish, nor the chicken we thought we had ordered. Still, we had ordered it, and still had beer to finish so in true Raggett-style carried on regardless. In fairness, the waitress did give us a discount on our bill. Not sure if she was rewarding our sang froid or appetite for frogs.
Sichuan, Chengdu, Qingyang, Wenshuyuan St