Foods I Really Did Try in China
Exhibit A: 12/10/2009 Breakfast, Shanghai: "Tea Eggs" - hardboiled eggs that are dark brown with a cracked shell. Normally I hate hardboiled eggs, so this was a difficult place to start from, and the mottled brown color that ran through the entire egg didn't help. Tasted like it had been soaking in soy sauce with a hint of fish sauce for some time. I ate a sliver. Eric ate one. Medora liked it and ate two.
Exhibit B: 12/10/2009 Dinner, Shanghai: "The Smell of Summer Celery Palm Middle Baby" - Peanuts, macadamia nuts, celery, red peppers, and a mystery deep fried ingredient (henceforth known as MDFI). Presentation was top-notch (see picture) with a small bouquet glued onto the plate with dough. I ate the peanuts, macadamia nuts, celery, and red peppers with enjoyment. The MDFI did actually go into my mouth, but the texture of the ingredient inside was revolting and I had to get rid of it. The sauce was spicy, so Medora got a pass on this one. Eric ate 5 MDFIs, and said he'd found his culinary limit for texture. After we'd decided to bypass any further samples of the dish, we attempted to analyze the MDFI. Eric was convinced it was a tiny piece of pork, yet strangely full of gristle, like "some random pig part that nobody else wants yet takes a long time to bread and deep fry". This thought was the proverbial snowball tumbling down a mountain, as we dissected the meal's name for clues. Ack, could "middle baby" mean the MDFI was pig toes?!?!
Stay tuned. We are going to show our guide the picture of the menu item with its Chinese name next to it, and we are going to ask our guide to translate it. Please, please, please, don't let it be pig toes!
4 comments:
Loved your first blog entries! What fun! I think the "middle baby" phrase is an attempt to render "hearts of palm" or "celery hearts" since those items come from the middle of the veg and they are tender like baby veg. Of course that completely side-steps the MDFI question. The menu was obviously written by a politician.
What, you didn't want the ducks blood tofu? Good for you for trying - food is always a place where, when traveling, I say, "hey, what's so wrong with nice, recognizable American food?"
I love the menu! I too vote for you (NOT me) to eat the ducks blood tofu, but that's just because I despise celery :)
are you sure those weren't deep fried chicken toes?
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