Gluttony
One cannot refrain from mentioning the food when visiting China. While I had vivd thoughts of sup janin (foetus soup) and tiger's testicles and dog meat before and throughout my stay, I did not have the opportunity to sample any of those. God only knows what will happen if I actually did come across these 'delicacies'. Would I try them for the sake of trying or would I feel a sudden urge to vomit? That I would not know.
Anyhow, I would have to mention some of the things I noticed during my trip. On the tour, we ususally had to eat in typical Chinese fashion, with 10 to 11 dishes in total. Apparently, the Chinese here aren't particularly fond of eating rice first but a little bit of each dishes. So you have plates stacking on each other while we were waiting for the rice to arrive. Furthermore, I noticed that the Chinese here can't seem to be able to finish their food even though they order many dishes. Someone told me that it is to 'jaga muka' (save face). Ah well.
Their fresh-water fishes are filled with bones, there is always at least a noodle to go with rice and they have a particular fondness to eating fired egg with tomatoes. Other things with which I have tried are chou tou fu (smelly beancurd) - an experience I shall not want to repeat, duck intestines - while eating steamboat and duck tongue - while dining with my cousin's teacher. Not that exotic for some maybe, but it was for me.
One funny incident was when a few of us went out from our hotel at night to explore the night life in China. We ended up going to a Chinese Muslim store and ate mee there and had a typical mamak session. The irony was that we were talking about Malaysian food. Stuff like 'ah, if only there was roti canai now'. Ha. Well, you can't exactly blame us for missing good food.
posted by smartass @ 2:28 PM
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