Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Culinary Delights of China

Almost at the end of my first trip to China. Will be setting off for home early tomorrow morning. I've some time now to do some blogging on some stuff.

Food was quite an eye opener. It's really hard to imagine the kind of food they can cook up from just one animal. And the thing is, we weren't even eating exotic animals. Here's a pic of a dish. If I remember correctly, it's either cow's lung or stomach. I tell you... the smell was.... simply indescribable. In situations like this, I'm really glad I don't take beef or entrails of any kind. Apparently, you have to eat it while it was hot so that it'll be nice and soft. I didn't take too many pics of other food coz I thot it was kinda rude to do it in front of guests.



Here's something a little more palatable. The famous 'kou rou' or three-layered pork. It's amazing how they do this in China. It looks so sinful, but it doesn't taste sinful at all. Unlike in Singapore, when you eat this, the fat kinda just bursts in your mouth... kinda gross. Here, you don't really taste it. They say it's 'fei er bu ni' - 'Fatty but you don't get sick of eating it'. I had to take a pic of it coz it simply looked so sinful here!



One thing I discovered on this trip. I'm not a very adventurous eater. I kinda stick to the very safe chicken, pork and veggies. At most of the hosted dinners, I think I ate less than half the dishes that were served. Sometimes coz of the red meat and entrails, other times, it was simply coz the dish was just too strange. We went to a restuarant where one of our team members ordered goat's spine..... omg.... I couldn't even bear the sight of it! But it was apparently very good.. .especially the marrow... As far as I am concerned, I can see that presentation is everything. I'm simply not gonna eat something that looked as if it was simply chopped and mashed together. Another meal, we were served chicken and this chicken (a rooster) actually had a crown almost twice the size of the head! And our hosts actually asked us to eat the crown! I have no idea how to do that.

Yes, food has been interesting. But I am dreaming of laksa and chicken rice... soon... very soon...

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