In keeping with his guest’s known frugal habits, the formal banquet that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao hosted for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur was not a very elaborate multi-course affair, but it did include the famous Beijing roast duck.

The banquet in the gold-plated ornate West Hall of the Great Hall of the People was limited to four courses. It had lobster soup and sponge bamboo, Beijing roast duck, winter bamboo shoots and greens. This was rounded off with sago and pumpkin cream, pastries and fruits, accompanied by Great Wall 2002 red and white wine.

It was not known how much of it Dr Singh ate, but right through the two-hour dinner he was seen chatting amiably with Wen, sometimes even without the help of interpreters sitting right behind them as the leaders and senior members of both delegations sat beneath a giant grey painting called “Sun rise on Mount Tai”, a mountain in Shandong province where Confucius was born.

Diplomatic observers familiar with the ways of the Chinese leadership say that although Wen knows English, in public, the leaders rarely speak anything  other than Chinese. The fact that he “dropped his guard” to speak in English with Dr Singh is an indicator of the chemistry the two leaders have reached over several meetings since Wen’s visit to India in 2005. This was reflected in the “positive” movement in the bilateral relations that the two leaders implied on Monday after their talks.