The 'Hufulou' restaurant in Hailin city in Heilongjiang province is located barely one kilometre (less than a mile) from the Hengdaohezi Siberian Tiger Park, home to a species listed as one of the 10 most endangered in the world.

It was offering a dish of stir-fried tiger meat with hot peppers for 800 yuan (98 dollars), and raw tiger meat at 7,000 yuan (863 dollars) a kilogram, the China Daily reported Thursday.

Diners could wash it down with a bottle of wine pickled with tiger bone.

When asked how the restaurant obtained the meat, a waiter reportedly said the owner had good connections within the tiger park and got the meat of dead tigers.

Police subsequently raided the restaurant and the owner confessed the so-called tiger meat was actually donkey meat dressed with tiger urine to give it a "special" flavour.

The eatery was closed for inspection, the report said. It was not clear how many customers had ordered the feast or where the restaurant obtained the tiger urine.

The Siberian tiger is only found in northeast China and Siberian regions of Russia with total numbers in the wild of less than 300.

The Hengdaohezi Siberian Tiger Park is China's largest breeding centre for the big cat and its director Wang Ligang said "it is impossible for the meat of dead tigers from the park to be smuggled outside".

"We have specialist workers to remove the hide and detach the meat from the bone," said Wang.

"Some useful organs are preserved for research while the remaining meat is incinerated and buried; the fur and bones are stored in a refrigerator."

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