Arguably one of the most unique dining experiences I’ve ever had happened in Chongqing. Imagine being in a cosplay event crossed with a history tour, theater play, along with a restaurant dining experience. That’s exactly what you’ll get to experience at the Baguo Hall of the Chongqing Hualiyan Culture and Art Banquet Center.
I booked the Chongqing Banquet in Ba Kingdom package on Klook and got to experience this unique dining experience for myself (By the way, I also joined the Miao Long Table Banquet here in Chongqing and you can read about my experience on this article.).
Chongqing Banquet in Ba Kingdom Package Purchase:
Klook: https://klook.tpx.lv/6Ff9SJcD
Trip.com: https://trip.tpx.lv/QLd46mOo
The Chongqing Banquet in Ba Kingdom: Great Food With Amazing Performances
Booking the Chongqing Banquet in Ba Kingdom package is relatively easy as you’ll only need to visit the Klook page and choose from there. Options are limited to the optional Hanfu makeup and photo taking (with no meals), Palace Banquet Lunch, and Palace Banquet Dinner. If you choose to get the optional package then you’ll need to pay CNY380 in addition to whatever is the rate for your meal package. For either of the meal packages, rates will range from CNY420 (for Guest seats) to CNY500 (for VIP seats). Then on the day of my booking, I was greeted by the sight of the entrance of the Baguo Hall of Chongqing Hualiyan Culture and Art Banquet Center. As for where you’ll find the place, it’s on Hongshi Avenue in the Jiulongpo District.
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After an uneventful walk from the entrance, I then came across these stairs leading up to the building itself. The stairs were nothing special but the lighted entrance to the building did provide a fair bit of excitement when I saw it.
When I did reach the top, it became evident that this was going to be a different experience. I was greeted by this view of the entrance that featured two people dressed in Hanfu with a lantern rack behind them. This honestly set the tone for the visit and it made me excited for what was going to happen next.
After entering, this sign directed me to this reception area where I had to exchange for my ticket based on my booking. From this point forward, I was beginning to get excited for what would come next.
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Banquet in Ba Kingdom Royal Feast
Here’s a pretty handy sign that points to the different halls in the building. What’s really cool about this though is that it actually has the names of the halls translated to English. In my stay, there honestly weren’t that many stores/establishments that did this in Chongqing so this was a welcome sight for sure.
If you somehow didn’t read the booking, here’s your chance to know more about the Banquet at Ba Kingdom (or Ba Country as it’s written here). This talks about how this dinner show makes use of dance, music, and food to give guests a truly unique dining experience (just like my experience in Dim Dou Duk).
Speaking of music and dance, we got to enjoy an entertainment show just before our scheduled event started. Now I’m not a good judge of dances so I couldn’t really tell if this pre-show was good but I will say that it was pretty entertaining and it was cool to see the dancers being all smiles and full of energy with their routine.
Another thing that I found to be quite nice was this sign with a map showing the seating locations. This gives you a heads up as to where you’ll be seated during the show as well as showing you the layout of the whole floor. To the right of the map showing seating locations, you’ll find the schedules for the lunch and dinner shows.
As I was waiting for the event to start, I decided to take a look around the area and saw this wonderful wooden Qin table with a teapot and two cups. Funnily enough, I thought that the large signage featuring the name of the event as well as the faux sakura in the back kind of ruined the vibe of this image.
If you’re not too keen on just watching the Qin table, you can actually challenge some of the performers here to a game of Weiqi. Known in Japan as Go, this is actually one of the oldest board games known to man and goes perfectly with the “feast spanning a thousand years” theme of the show.
Now this was an interesting section here that totally surprised me when I read it. So the guy in the picture is actually playing one of the oldest games in the world. Called Cuju, this game is said to be the predecessor to football. Growing up, I always thought that football was just a European invention. Turns out, the Chinese had something similar more or less two thousand years ago with Cuju.
After reading up on Cuju, I was surprised to hear a commotion with some of the guests crowding around something. I decided to check out what this was and found these beautiful ladies congregating in this area. Initially, I thought they were going to usher us to our seats but this was essentially similar to what greeted us earlier.
Yes, this was another entertainment show that in hindsight served as a preview of what the show had to offer. The Hanfu these beautiful ladies wore were really nice and I couldn’t help but what really stood out were their smiles. You could see there was this genuine sense of pride and enjoyment at what they were doing.
Aside from the enthusiasm of the performers, I also noticed the guests were actually having a really good time. A lot of us were obviously taking pictures with the majority looking intrigued and somewhat curious as to what was happening. Overall though, the guests’ reaction to the pre-show was quite warm.
Going back to the ladies’ Hanfu, you can actually wear these as well as traditional makeup if you opted for the package on Klook. This is available to both males and females and as I mentioned earlier, is optional and not inclusive of meals. Other than just wearing the Hanfu, the package also includes a photoshoot where you can flaunt your look while wearing this traditional Han Chinese attire.
After the performance was over, someone then got on the mic and started spitting bars… Okay, that last part was made up! Kidding aside though, the guy on the mic was basically announcing that we were about to start the event and giving everyone a little background about it. I wasn’t listening too intently though as at this point I was very excited and just a little bit hungry.
With the official’s talk over, the guests then started trickling into the events hall where our meals were already set. A typical Chinese full course meal would usually start with cold appetizers which in this image features a diverse selection of fruits as well as nuts. One of the standouts here was actually the star fruit which caught my attention because of its unusual shape.
As you can see, I took this picture from the Guest section. In the background, you’ll see the main stage and the right side of the VIP section that was still empty when I was taking the image. One thing you’ll also notice is that the couple in front of me had a child with them. Children are actually welcome to the show and they get to pay a slightly lower rate than adults.
Something that I thought was cool were these wait staff who served us in their traditional Hanfu attire. If I remember correctly, they were serving us the second course which typically is headlined by a soup.
As for what soup was served, we unsurprisingly got hotpot which is understandable considering this is Chongqing after all (another place which serves good hotpot in this city is Erchang Lao Hougou in Testbed 2). What did it taste like you ask? Honestly, it was just okay. Not bad, but definitely not something that I’d write a book about.
To complement the food, we were also served Guihua jiu or Osmanthus wine. I tried to search this up and it’s basically just rice wine flavored with the sweet flowers of the Osmanthus plant. This was actually quite nice and it kind of evoked a nostalgic feeling when I drank it for some reason.
Now hotpot wouldn’t be complete without toppings and here you’ll find what I got for mine. This was actually quite a feast now that I look back on it with the sea cucumber, shiitake mushrooms, and the abalone really doing a lot of the heavy lifting for the flavor.
Here are the other toppings provided for my seat. These were also nice with the mushrooms again adding even more umami to the soup along with the shrimp. Really, the only thing that I was disappointed about here was that the meat toppings were severely lacking.
Thankfully, there was this lamb chop to further complement the soup that looked like it was grilled and/or baked and that tasted really nice. Again though, I still would have preferred a little more meat. Still, this was already a filling meal and I understand that making it all about meat wouldn’t be as immersive and true to the people’s diet in this region.
Of course, no Asian meal wouldn’t be complete without the presence of rice. Here, a cup is placed in soup and let me tell you, the flavors are just too good. You could actually eat this as is and I’d guarantee you’re going to want seconds.
Dessert was nice although much like the hotpot soup, it didn’t blow my socks off. I’m not quite sure but it probably had to do with all the stuff I’d eaten at that point that I really didn’t bother much with the dish. I will say this though, if this was the only thing I ate that night then I’d actually have an even higher opinion of it.
Performance
As much as I’d like to say the food was okay, what really made the Banquet in Ba Kingdom truly memorable were the performances. It was a celebration of mostly Han and Ba cultures and this showed mainly in the use of beautiful Hanfu attire by the performers (like the ones in the image above).
Of course, it wasn’t just Han clothing and attire that got some attention. There was a point in the performance when some of the dancers had on more modern attire which still seemed to imbibe a lot of the region’s influence (or at least I think that’s what they were meant to channel).
One thing that I also enjoyed (but some people might not like) was the lighting. It actually reminded me a lot of Chongqing 1949 minus the moving stages and seats. In this particular example, the lighting had this warm red hue to highlight the ‘strength’ of one of the dancers who I think was playing the role of a warrior maiden (of which China has many in its history).
From the intense warm colors of the previous scene, it then transitioned to one that was much darker with cooler lighting that made it look eerie. Other than the lighting, the dance during this scene was also a little ‘weird’ (for lack of a better term) that added further to the eerie atmosphere.
Eventually the scenes gave way to these women wearing these turquoise-colored Hanfu and dancing gracefully on the main stage. This was arguably one of the best looking dances that night with the choreography being on point. And if you look at the amount of smartphone cameras out in the crowd, it would seem that I’m not the only one who shared this opinion.
At this point, the lights eventually turned back to normal and I could now see the performers quite clearly. The show was slowly wrapping up and I couldn’t help but think how surprisingly enjoyable this whole dining experience was. A lot of it, I think, had to do with just how it was structured with the meal first and then followed by the show/performance. There wasn’t one aspect where it stood out but if you combined the food, lighting, performance, and sound then you end up with something really special.
Have you tried the Banquet in Ba Kingdom yet? If yes then don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feelings about it in the comments section!
