Local residents usually spare the best rooms in their houses to accommodate
tourists. Typically, restaurants are domed and have white walls and a small
kitchen garden nearby. Most of them lack decorations and looks like small
mushrooms lurking among the greenery.
But inside, there is plenty of life, pleasure, tea and delicious local
cuisine - mellow white shrimp soup, wild vegetables with crabs, slices of salty
chicken.
While fish and shrimp are the main staple, wild vegetables well prepared
reign at a growing number.
"The wild vegetables are free from pollution and chemicals," said Huang Yong,
owner of a nice-look restaurant built of bamboo. "They sell well among the
tourists and many tourists will buy some wild vegetables to cook at home."
Local specialties
Three Hills Island produces wild vegetables all year round and some farmers
plant them in the kitchen gardens too.
Jitou, or rooster head rice, a white rice from wild grass that grows in the
water, is a tourist favourite. The rice is prepared with beans and white shrimp
from the lake and costs 10 yuan (US$1.2) for a bowl. Huang Yong said almost
every tourist orders the dish.
Sun Chengnan, 60, a tourist from East China's Anhui Province, said after
eating three bowls of the rice that it was miraculous. He had lived in a local
hotel for one week with his wife and would walk a long way to Huang Yong's
restaurant to have jitou rice.
"I feel much better since I came here," Sun said. "The price of the
accommodation and food on the island is quite reasonable and well-prepared."
Sun said he eats twice the amount of food he usually consumes.
Three Hills Island is also famous for its boat cuisine, literally dishes
prepared in a boat. A big boat is often anchored and welcomes the customers with
a flag saying Taihu Lake Boat Cuisine in Chinese characters.
Nearby, the cuisine is also served in small boats which only have the room to
put one table, so tourists have to stand in the boat to enjoy their food.
Three dishes are at the top of the menu - fried white shrimp, boiled white
fish and silver fish with fried eggs. Crabs are popular too. White shrimp, white
fish and silver fish are the unique products of the Taihu Lake and are the
representative dishes of boat cuisine.
Garlic and piquant sauces are seldom added. The fish is cooked immediately
after it is taken from the water, along with wild vegetables.
It may not be the paradise, but Three Hills Island is what many city dwellers
want.
