{"id":63843,"date":"2026-06-26T08:44:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T00:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=63843"},"modified":"2026-06-26T08:44:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T00:44:46","slug":"bears-paw-and-monkey-brain-not-on-chinesologys-us2000-manchu-han-banquet-menu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=63843","title":{"rendered":"Bear\u2019s paw and monkey brain? Not on Chinesology\u2019s US$2,000 Manchu-Han banquet menu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.i-scmp.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/1280x720\/public\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2026\/06\/25\/143c03f7-648a-4994-9bca-d582a7080c44_a48b3b8f.jpg?itok=bknz1Khh&amp;v=1782382123\" \/><\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<div datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1xdhyk6 ec74h0k0\">The Manchu-Han banquet (or <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">Manhan quanxi<\/em>) \u2013 a legendary grand feast dating back to <span data-qa=\"Component-Text\" class=\"css-0 ef9u0v00\">the Qing dynasty<\/span> (1644-1912) \u2013 was, depending on how you interpret it, either the pinnacle of imperial culinary extravagance or the origin of China\u2019s reputation for eating everything.<\/div>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">It was not a single meal but a multi-day culinary marathon, traditionally consisting of 108 dishes served over three days in six separate banquets. The scale was almost unimaginable \u2013 some accounts list more than 300 different dishes.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The feast was notorious for ingredients that the modern palate would find distasteful: bear\u2019s paw, orangutan lips, elephant\u2019s trunk, leopard fetus and monkey brain, made infamous by films such as Steven Spielberg\u2019s <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom<\/em> (1984) and Tsui Hark\u2019s <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">The Chinese Feast<\/em> (1995).<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The menu also included many ingredients still prized today, such as fish maw, bird\u2019s nest, sea cucumber and abalone, as well as mushrooms like lion\u2019s mane.<\/p>\n<div datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1xdhyk6 ec74h0k0\"><span data-qa=\"Component-Text\" class=\"css-0 ef9u0v00\">Wan Tat-kong<\/span> is a veteran chef who took part in one of the grandest recreations of the Manchu-Han banquet in Hong Kong, at Kowloon\u2019s Ambassador Restaurant in 1977.<\/div>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The two-day feast, which consisted of four meals, was priced at HK$100,000 for 12 guests \u2013 almost the same as the cost of a 500 sq ft flat in the area during that time \u2013 and took three months to prepare.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cThe lucky guests were a group of Japanese television celebrities who are in Hongkong to make a documentary on Chinese food,\u201d said a report in the South China Morning Post dated November 3, 1977.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/food-drink\/article\/3358294\/bears-paw-and-monkey-brain-not-chinesologys-us2000-manchu-han-banquet-menu?utm_source=rss_feed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Manchu-Han banquet (or Manhan quanxi) \u2013 a legendary grand feast dating back to the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) \u2013 was, depending on how you interpret&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[14666,11873,1713,25431,25433,739,9493,25430,25432],"class_list":["post-63843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-banquet","tag-bears","tag-brain","tag-chinesologys","tag-manchuhan","tag-menu","tag-monkey","tag-paw","tag-us2000","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}