Restaurant adds Tang to menus

What makes a perfect banquet an unforgettable evening? One might find the answer in the poems of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), which depict the nightlife of Chang'an, the imperial city in modern-day Xi'an of Shaanxi province, providing rich details and rhetoric beauty.

For example, in Liren Xing (Fair Ladies on Outing) composed by Du Fu, elite diners "are served with arrays of delicate plates of fresh white fish"; in Preface for a Spring Night Banquet with Cousins in the Orchard, Li Bai described a joyful gathering in such verses as "begins the banquet by sitting among flowers, be drunk by beverages and intoxicating scenes of the moon".

Surrounded by dancing, singing, and poem-chanting and served good food and drinks, these great poets not only celebrated the pleasures of life but they also expressed a concern for the deep malaise in society beneath the extravagance of Chang'an and the Tang empire.

Be it prosperous, romantic, sorrowful, or complicated, Chang'an is poised as a fantasy worth a visit.

Now, for visitors to Xi'an, that fantasy has become a reality with an extravagant dinner at the Fu Rong Yan Restaurant: A Seasonal Aesthetic Dining Show.

The newly unveiled show at the Xi'an Qu Jiang Fu Rong Ge Hotel brings diners an immersive 90-minute "bite" of Chang'an with an engaging evening party that replicates the dinners that intellectuals, musicians and dancers of Tang once enjoyed.

Directed by Sun Ting and Liu Xiaozhou, the dinner show allows people to feast on a carefully designed culinary set while their eyes and ears feast on a show that reenacts the many social aspects of the Tang Dynasty at its aesthetic heights.

The dining hall is refurnished to resemble a fashion showroom, and diners sit at long tables with two rows on each side while performances are staged on the walkway in the middle.

If they like, guests can wear Tang attire and makeup with the help of hotel staff members before attending the banquet.

"A primary challenge for this project is that, while we want to unveil a flourishing Chang'an and its diverse aspects of life, the show mustn't be dramatic — we don't want people to feel uncomfortable or too emotional when they eat," Liu says.

"There is no plot or story to compete for people's attention or disrupt their gastronomic experiences.

"Every scenario reveals a dimension of Tang society, culture and art, and reflects its varied seasonal customs. They can be performed as a stand-alone piece, so we can make improvements to the content and actions."

Sun choreographed several important galas, including a group dance at the opening of the 2023 China-Central Asia Summit in Xi'an.

She says when tourists want to feel the city's historic depth, they visit the Shaanxi History Museum, Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum, or other similar destinations. The dinner show adds another dimension to tourists' appreciation of Xi'an by making these figures and objects from the past come alive.

A dance in the show is inspired by a Tang sancai (three-color glaze) pottery figurine of a band of musicians performing on the back of a howling camel.

A celebrated collection in the Shaanxi History Museum, the figurine was excavated from a tomb on the western outskirts of Xi'an in 1959, which shows the city's pivotal role in trade and cultural exchanges between ancient China and other civilizations along the Silk Road. The band reflects the foreign musical instruments that were introduced to China and integrated into classical Chinese music.

During the show, musicians are ushered onto the stage one by one as the band's conductor introduces the instruments that will be played. They gather and play instruments, such as the flute, the pear-shaped, four-stringed pipa, the plucked zither guzheng, and the konghou, a multi-stringed member of the harp family.

Sun says the archetype of the band leader is Li Guinian, a reputed musician who performed at royal soirees during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong when the Tang Dynasty achieved its height of prosperity.

The pairing of every scenario and each dish poses another challenge for the show's production team.

"We work shoulder to shoulder with the chefs," Sun says.

"One day at the hotel, we were offered a fungus soup for a taste test. It would be presented as the first dish at the show. The first sip of the yummy soup evoked a pleasant spring scene in my mind."

That inspired her to create a group dance for the first scene — young women on an outing collecting fungus. As they dance, the fungus soup is presented.

Sun Yanbin, general manager of the Qu Jiang Fu Rong Ge Hotel, says that although Xi'an is known for its variety of wheat-based food and barbecue culture, the show is suited for diners' varied diet and preferences.

"There is sweet-and-sour fish and simple sauteed vegetables, which satisfy those who don't eat much wheat-based food and favor a light diet. Meanwhile, we celebrate Shaanxi's culinary traditions by offering Qishan Noodles to bring an end to the course," he says.

What impressed Ma Ke, one of the first diners at the show, was a "lotus flower" floating in the fungus soup.

Ma, who heads an art theater company in Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui autonomous region, says he ate the flower and thought it was made of wheat. Later, the staff told him it was made of fish.

"No wonder the texture was so smooth," he says.

Sun Yanbin says a mood of auspiciousness and blooming Hibiscus flowers are two of the dinner show's keynotes that convey good hospitality and accentuate Xi'an's cultural accumulations over time.

The hotel's neighbor, Tang Paradise, is a tourist complex that was once an imperial garden where Hibiscus flowers were believed to grow in large quantities.

The dinner show addresses the city's intensified integration of tourism experiences and creative cultural products.

Figures released by Shaanxi's culture and tourism bureau earlier this year show that in 2024, the province received 817 million domestic visits and 467,700 inbound visits.

Sun Yanbin says that to better cater to people's ever-changing needs, they will continue to upgrade the content and dishes for the dinner show "about two to three times a year".

He adds that foreign language subtitles are also in the making and will be added soon.