It’s been a busy week of eating…
The most outlandish meal was a turtle garnished with seahorses, a braised buffalo hoof and a side of shark lips.
The most surprising would be donkey skewers – the meat was delicately flavoured and surprisingly tender, low in fat and overall very tasty. They were served in a sesame pastry bun with a small layer of pickled vegetables.
The best quality was Xiao Wang Home Style restaurant, a constantly moving and therefore hard to find little place near the twin towers. The dishes are all big and hearty, and full of flavour. A little pricier than similar restaurants, this place seems to have found favour with the international business crowd as there are a lot of dishes which I would recognise, but aren’t necessarily that traditional, such as lemon chicken and three varieties of Kung Pao chicken. To avoid being lumped in with the crowd we ordered a boiled jellyfish (pictured right), which was crunchier than the amorphous mass I had expected.
There’s a food texture in China that I’ve not experienced at home – some foods, such as Golden Needle mushrooms, are soft and pliant to the touch but make a loud crunching noise when bitten and on chewing.
The least enjoyable was a huge, three storey Szechuan restaurant. The meal was typical fiery fare, but the other clientele were appalling. A man at the next table was stuffing food in so fast he choked, punched himself in the chest in an unlikely version of the Heimlich manoeuvre, coughed out semi-chewed meat on the floor then immediately got back to gorging himself. His three companions didn’t even look up from their plates to ensure they didn’t miss out on any of the dishes.
After all that the most mundane, but also the most welcome relief was a large plate of Ikea meatballs, complete with chips, gravy and lingonberry jam, followed by a lovely slice of Dime bar cake.
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