Jimmy Wales Grows Them Good and Organic

My first evening in Beijing my new friends Fred and Pockey took me to a beautiful restaurant on HouHai Lake in the center of Beijing.  Very pretty at night with the lights on the water.  It was very dark though and we all struggled to read the menus by the light on Fred's cell phone.

So I'm picking out what I want to eat and going through the menu and something stops me in my tracks.  A collision between Web 2.0 and food in my first hours of Beijing.

I look down at the menu and say to Pockey, "Okay, I know my Cantonese is barely passable and my Mandarin is non-existent, but you have got to tell me what 303 is."

She says "What number?"

"Sam ling sam"

She finds it and starts laughing.

It is Stir-fried wikipedia.

So, after much discussion, here is what we think happened.

"Hey I'm making the new menu, what's the english name for those flat crispy mushrooms?"

"Um, there isn't one."

"Well what should I put down here?"

"I don't know, look it up in wikipedia."

"What?"

"Wikipedia!"

Wikipedia with peppers looks like this:

And it is delicious.

So, thanks Jimmy Wales, for adding to the experience.

Update:  Many people asked what the name of the restaurant was.  While I was in China, things were happening so fast that I just didn't notice.  But Pockey was quick to tell me.  She says:

• "South silk road (cha ma gu dao) is the name and its at the (hou hai)"

Another Update: Mr. Codeman38 in the comments to this post directs us to another photo of Wikipedia in Beijing!  Utterly bizarre.

 

Technorati Tags: wikipedia, web 2.0, food, beijing, menus, translation, jimmy wales

Comments

[Nancy White]

This is too funny! I love it! I hope you are having a great time. Waving from DC.

[Webomatica]

Heh it probably was a note to the english translator of the menu to look up the word in wikipedia but they forgot.

Looks delicious regardless...

[k2]

That's hilarious! And I'm envious of all of you eating such marvelous food.

[Edward Vielmetti]

I'm running a Survey Monkey survey to try to figure out what you ate so that I can order it myself.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=r4ylsPNzjQkeLk2PTuq_2bDQ_3d_3d

I'll post the answers when I get something that looks like a summary.

[Edward Vielmetti]

I tried to order stir-fried wikipedia with pimentos at Kai Garden in Ann Arbor. They didn't have wikipedia - said it was high class and only available in China and very expensive.

[Josh Jasper]

Wikipedia Wikipedia Wikipedia Baked Beans and Wikipedia ?

Wikipedia sausage Wkipedi Wikipedia bacon Wikipedia tomato and Wikipeda?

Lobster Thermidor au Cravette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and Wikipedia?

[D]

So, if I understand this correctly, 鸡枞 is "Chicken fir mushroom".

It's a guess, but you can search for that and get Google to translate the page.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.yn.gov.cn/yunnan,china/74597465898090496//16214.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%25E9%25B8%25A1%25E6%259E%259E%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den

[David Gerard]

And eat it with some Wikipedia Bread on the side: http://sexybeijing.tv/new/eblog/default.asp?view=plink&id=127

[Sara, Ms. Adventures in Italy]

That's hilarious! :)

Is there user-generated chicken stir-fry on the menu, too?

[Dan]

I thought Wikipedia was blocked in China, for all the evil democracy it contains.

[Jules]

That is GREAT! LOL!

[yumsugar]

I also went there and took almost the exact same pics! Small world, glad you enjoyed your wikipedia!

[Nick Moreau]

Would you consider releasing these pics as CC-BY-2.0, so that we could use them on Wikinews? I'm planning to write an article about your find, just as I wrote an article about the bread prior to it.

[Martin]

Correction: it does not look delicious. It looks del.icio.us.

[Jim Benson]

I actually ended up having this at almost every meal for the 3 weeks I was in China - in various states of preparation. Most often, I was ordering it off picture menus.

[James Benson]

Mmm Sounds good, looks disgusting, but sounds good

[DJ Fadereu]

i just wanted to add that in the Wikipedia itself, but you haven't named the restaurant itself. Could you please?

[Jim Benson]

I received many requests for the name of the restaurant, Pockey says:

South silk road (cha ma gu dao) is the name and its at the (hou hai)

So there you go!

[Theorris]

I want to try the Steam Eggs with Wikipedia.

[kentsin]

鸡枞 -- Collybia albuminosa （Berk.） Petch

According to Chinese Version of Wikipedia (百度百科) http://bk.baidu.com/view/164511.htm

There is a picture of it.