Are you sure you want "authentic" Chinese food?

So the Beijing Olympics start tomorrow, and the city's um, interesting array of cuisine is on display for tourists from around the world:

The Guolizhuang restaurant specializes in animal penises while there are several donkey restaurants.

Stalls along Snack Street in the Wangfujing shopping district sell a range of delicacies on sticks such as seahorses for 30 yuan ($4.50) and cicadas for five yuan.

The Chinese traditionally believe certain animals or their organs have medicinal properties.

"The seahorses are good for men's kidneys and their virility. Those (crustacea) are for the girls to improve their skin and looks, and these (lizards) are for both the boys and the girls, they boost your virility," said food vendor Sun Hainan.

However there appeared to be few takers on Snack Street.

"I haven't tried them and I'm not going to," said 11-year-old Fang Jie from Chingdao who was in Beijing for the Olympics.

One of China's largest travel services, China International Travel Service (CITS), said visitors might consider things eaten in China to be distasteful but they needed to "bridge the cultural gap and look at it with an open mind."

Yeah, look, I'm as open-minded as the next guy, but I don't think I'll be dining at any restaurants that specialize in animal penises in the near future. Or, ever, really.

On another note, I was surprised by this admission about Red China's not-too-distant past from CITS:

"There have been periods of severe famine even as recently as the late 1960s when tens of millions died of starvation in the Great Leap Forward. Back then you would have been glad for what is on today's menu," said CITS in a statement.

Yeah, I guess if I was starving to death in one of Chairman Mao's murderously idiotic commie schemes, lizards, bugs, and seahorses might not sound quite so bad. Downright appetizing, actually.

I still might take a pass on the penises, though.