Where to find a good restaurant with both delicious food and special decoration?
         Qian Xiang Ge is such a restaurant, designed as an ancient Chinese garden to resemble the gardens of Suzhou.
         While the look is Suzhou, the taste is Southwest China's Guizhou Province. The name Qian Xiang Ge means "Pavilion of Guizhou Flavour."
         The ancient garden's symmetrical structure spills over into the arrangement of the restaurant.
         In the middle of the first floor is a marble wall where water flows down slowly from the top along the wall.
         Two women in qipao, or tight Chinese dresses, were playing ancient Chinese string instruments in front of the wall to affect a days-of-old feel.
         Two staircases of the same shape stand on both sides of the wall leading to second-floor compartments.
         Different from those stuffy rooms in other restaurants, compartments here have a big round window in each wall and large straw curtains.
         Some are French windows with long wooden chairs as those of the corridor in the Summer Palace. Customers can watch the flowing water on the marble wall before them or look out at a shining view of the Jin Mao Tower and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower.
         Some windows are mounted with carved stone, fragments collected from ancient architectures or houses in the countryside.
         Each room has its unique character, but all are of the style of ancient garden architectures.
         Dining in such a restaurant, customers feel like a member of the royal family, watching the wonderful sightseeing and enjoying good music.
         Dishes here are certainly of the same high quality.
         Guizhou cuisine is famous for hot dishes as are Sichuan and Hunan foods. But many believe Guizhou people use pepper best.
         For one pepper, they have eight different culinary methods.
         Since most of the province is in mountains and forests, the cuisines is known for its natural ingredients, such as mushrooms and tender bamboo shoots.
        And due to its geographic position and lagged-behind transportation infrastructure, most of the foods are preserved in salt water and smoked so that they can be kept for a long time.
         Yuxing cao, an herb with a smell of fish mixed with sauces and used with a cold dish, is a specialty in the province. This herb is believed to be able to eliminate internal toxins and reduce inflammations.
        It is a must-have dish for every family in Guizhou, but those tasting it for the first time will find the puckery herb a little hard to swallow.
         Suan tang yu, fish in sour soup, is the most renowned Guizhou dish. The soup is made of wild tomatoes, a special spice and glutinous rice powder. All the ingredients were put together and fermented in a large jar for more than a month.
         Guizhou people have an old saying that "a person will have no strength if not drinking the soup in a day."
         La rou, dried and smoked pork, and pao jiao cui chang, preserved pepper stirred with cleaned pig's intestine, are two famous dishes in the cuisine.
         Despite the elaborate decor and exquisite dishes, the restaurant is inexpensive at about 30 yuan ($3.6) per dish.