It was a nice re-introduction to China. For a start, the bus actually stopped about as often as you'd want for toilet breaks.

But then came this.

We were ushered off the bus when it reached Shantou, and saw we were in front of a massive, glittering hotel.

'Fourth floor!' said our smiling bus attendant, with a warm beam.

Lagging behind the other passengers, all of whom were Chinese, we got into the gold-and-red-bedecked lift uncertainly. After all, we'd been served complimentary meals on bus journies in China before - but nothing like this place.

Perhaps you had to pay?

But no. It was all included in our ticket price. All we had to do was take a seat with our fellow passengers and then sit back like emperors while dish after dish after dish was borne out by red-jacketed wait-staff.

It was a sumptuous feast, made all the tastier by how unexpected it was. The most surprising dish is just visible on the far left of the photo. It's the dark-coloured one where you can just make out some springy tendrils rising up (and a pair of chopsticks is resting across the plate).

Everything else - sweet, white fungus; clear soup with pork balls; steamed bok choi; two types of homestyle tofu; and an elaborately sauced fish dish - we could make out. But the dark, tendril-y stuff was mysterious. We were on the verge of deciding they were some kind of insect that had been deep-fried and then sauced.

But external confirmation was required.

'What is that?' we asked our dining companions.

When even they professed not to know, we were intrigued. Luckily, one woman called over a waitress to get the goss.

Turned out they were goose tongues!

Ohhh ... so the bits that I thought were like bugs' legs or antennae were actually the muscles that had tethered the tongue inside the animal's mouth.

Got it.