RESTAURANT FINED FOR DISH LACED WITH TIGER URINE

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SHANGHAI - A restaurant in northeastern China that advertised illegal tiger
meat dishes was found instead to be selling donkey flesh - marinated in
tiger urine, a newspaper reported yesterday.

The Hufulou restaurant, located beside the Hengdaohezi Siberian Tiger Park
near the city of Hailin, had advertised stir-fried tiger meat with hot
peppers for 800 yuan ($166), as well as liquor flavoured with tiger bone for
600 yuan a bottle, the China Daily reported. Raw meat was priced at 7,000
yuan ($1,451) per kilogram.

The sale of tiger parts is illegal in China and officers shut down the
restaurant, only to be told by owner Ma Shikun that the meat was actually
that of donkeys, flavoured with tiger urine to give the dish a "special"

flavour, the newspaper said. The report didn't say how the urine was
obtained.

Authorities confiscated the restaurant's profits and fined Ma 2,400 yuan,
the newspaper reported. The eatery was closed for inspection, the report
said.

Ma had initially claimed that the meat came from dead tigers sold to him by
the management of the Hengdaohezi reserve, but later changed his story, the
report said.

The Hengdaohezi tiger reserve is China's largest breeding centre for the big
cat and its director, Mr Wang Ligang, said "it is impossible for the meat of
dead tigers from the park to be smuggled outside". - AFP-



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Like the man said when he backed into the stove...
"That's a hot one!"
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