Plenty of things were to be different at Friday's White House state dinner for President Xi Jinping, ranging from the setting to the decor to the post-dinner entertainment. But the White House decided to keep one thing the same: Maine lobster is back on the menu.

The lobster was to be poached in butter and served with traditional rice noodle rolls embedded with spinach, shiitake mushrooms and leeks when US President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, welcome Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, to dinner in the East Room with a few hundred guests.

When then-president Hu Jintao was the guest in 2011, the lobster was also poached and served with glazed carrots and black trumpet mushrooms.