BEIJING / SHANGHAI - First there was video conferencing, then video chat.

Now a restaurant chain is serving up video hotpot.

Workers at a Haidilao hotpot restaurant in Beijing test the video connection with workers at a restaurant in Shanghai. Jiang Dong / China Daily

Instead of making the 1,500-km trip to Shanghai for his friend's birthday, Chen Yufei popped into a Beijing restaurant where a special video room is set up.

His friend in Shanghai did the same in his city.

When Chen sat down at the table, his friend was in front of him on a high-definition screen.

"How fancy is this!" 31-year-old Chen said to China Daily as he was taking photos of the screens with his colleagues from Shanghai.

"I think it's very impressive to have a birthday party like this," he said.

The video feast is on the menu of the famous Haidilao hotpot chain in China's two biggest cities.

"The fresh idea flashed in our boss's mind," said Zhong Weijian, a technical officer in the Beijing branch.

"Customers book the room mainly for family reunions and business negotiations," Zhong said. "We'll call the Shanghai branch when we receive a reservation and make sure customers in both cities can be seated at the same time."

Currently, the chain has two video hotpot rooms, one at the Wangfujing branch in Beijing and one on Shanghai's Changshou Road.

The video rooms have been open since Feb 2.

If successful, the chain hopes to expand the service to other provinces, or even other countries.

In addition to the food, customers pay 200 yuan ($31.75) per hour for using the room.

"The video room has been fully booked in February," said Chen Yu, manager of the Wangfujing branch.

The video room in Beijing is about 30 square meters and large enough for six customers.

"Many customers prefer to use the room for dinners rather than lunch," Zhong said, adding the average age of customers who booked the video hotpot is about 30.

"The whole process is very smooth. The image and the voice transmission are as good as those of video conferencing at work," said one of Chen's colleagues surnamed Luo.

"I have a lot of friends in Beijing, whom I haven't met for a long time because of being busy at work," said a woman surnamed Yu who is having dinner with her husband at Haidilao.

"The new service gives us a chance to have a dinner together without traveling. I would like to give it a try."

The video hotpot also helped establish a friendship between waitresses in the two cities.

Zhao Huanhuan, in her 20s, who is specially trained for serving in the video room in Shanghai, struck up a friendship with a waitress named Lu Ke in the Beijing branch.

"What a fantastic experience!" Zhao said excitedly.

"It was too amazing to believe. I'm so interested in using the special room and enjoy serving people there," she said. "I also talked about some interesting interactive games with Lu before guests come for dinner."

Lu said they provided riddles for a family of seven who had dinner on the eve of the Lantern Festival.

Five members, including a child and his parents, were in the capital, while the child's grandparents were in Shanghai.

"I prepared some jokes with Zhao through the video before they came and our ideas made the family have a good time that night," Lu said.

Although Lu felt a little bit nervous when she first served in front of the screens, she said the new mode of communication also encouraged her to supply better services for customers.

"It's like a service competition. We saw each other through video and I could learn from Zhao's serving," Lu said, adding she will visit Zhao if she goes to Shanghai.

It seems that video hotpot doesn't satisfy everyone's palate, however.

Jiang Yan, a 30-year-old customer who tried the video hotpot, paid nearly 600 yuan for a dinner in the room, including the 200-yuan room expense, and said the price was a little bit high.

"The lamps in the room are too bright, which may not be suitable for enjoying a dinner with friends," he said. "The video can't replace a real close family reunion sitting around the hotpot."