China’s most influential newspaper ran a large feature on Seattle’s seafood restaurants that looks like an advertorial pitching for China’s ever-growing numbers of affluent tourists.
Published by the People’s Daily – the official publication of the Chinese Communist Party – the article headlined "Food Fans Look Here!" gives an enthusiastic endorsement to four Seattle seafood eateries: Taylor Shellfish, The Crab Pot, AQUA By El Gaucho and Elliot’s Oyster House.
Seattle, said the article, is “blessed by heaven” with an abundance of North Pacific seafood, as well as some of the “world’s best grounds for salmon and trout.”
The article, which contains photos of each of the restaurants, recommends Chinese tourists to try oysters, mussels and clams at Taylor Shellfish which, it notes, has been in business since 1890. Readers are recommended to “gorge themselves” at The Crab Pot where patrons are given an “apron and hammer” to better consume crustaceans.
Chinese outbound tourists will number 200 million per year by 2020, according to Hong Kong-based investment bank CLSA.
