Gao Yang and his group settled into a Baghdad restaurant known for its local cuisine, arriving before the typical dining hours, so they were the only customers there. Still, that didn't seem to speed up the service.
At first, the cucumber yogurt salad and chickpea mash came quickly, but after that, everything seemed to slow down. Gao Yang noticed that almost all the dishes were grilled—Iraqi cuisine seemed to consist chiefly of massive chunks of meat, like lamb and chicken, all skewered on iron spikes, even the tomatoes were charred before serving.
Upon seeing the dishes served, Cui Bo looked puzzled and said, "This feels like the barbecues back home. Brother Yang, can we have some beer? Just a little, it won't hurt, right? Otherwise, this barbecue just doesn't feel right."