So near yet so feared: beggars' banquets

It's a phenomenon I've noticed many times but only ever in the mainland: when it comes to food, cheapest is best.

Not only is this true, but the fanciest and most expensive is often unbelievably, wallet-shrivellingly bad.

Take Guizhou province, for example, where I spent Christmas with various chums. We thought we'd do something special on Christmas Eve, dinner-wise, and let a taxi driver take us to a "famous and a little bit nice Sichuan restaurant" as we were starving and too cold to walk. That was mistake No1.

In my experience, taxi drivers don't understand Sichuan food, even in Sichuan province. They invariably take you somewhere they think they would go if they weren't themselves.