My epicurean adventures continue
Even though I’m still not sure what I ate last night, I’m not letting slow down or stop my foodie adventures. What I do find a little strange is that after 17 years as a vegetarian, I know will pretty much try anything and everything.
When it got to lunch time today, I was starting to flag. This morning, I got up at 5:30am for a call with a business partner back on the East Coast, and so I’d had my breakfast earlier than usual. After buying a fruit knife this morning, I did try the sugar cane that one of the students gave me, but by 12pm I was ready for a real meal.
Just as I was thinking about venturing out on my own, one of my students (a young man called Bush) dropped by to visit. He’s really trying to improve his English, and so he wanted me to go with him to the library to choose some English books that might help. I asked him if he was hungry, and suggested that after the library, we might go to the small restaurant off campus that he introduced me to last week, where they make the most delicious wonton soup. He agreed, and so after helping him chose a few books (D. H. Lawrence’s ‘Women in Love’ and John Irving’s ‘Hotel New Hampshire being among them), we headed off campus.
Before we got to the restaurant, he asked me if I’d ever tried cake with meat. I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but being eternally open to new experiences, I followed him to one the street food vendors. The cake was a sort of unsweetened flaky pastry that she opened up like a pitta bread. Into that, she took a thick piece of pork (it looked like belly pork) from an industrial size crockpot, and proceeded to chop it into tiny pieces, along with what looked like an Anaheim pepper. Lastly, she took a big spoonful of chili sauce and mixed that in too, before putting the mixture into the pastry.
We headed to the restaurant as I explained to Bush that elsewhere, restaurants really frowned upon you bringing your own food with you. He said that was pretty common, and so we sat down to order. I’ve been to this same restaurant 5 times now, and I’m slowly working through their menu. They really do have the best wonton soup that I’ve ever tried, with the most amazing broth. After reviewing all of the different flavors that I’ve tried so far, I went with Bush’s suggestion – pigeon. After trying it, I’m wondering if maybe this isn’t the solution to the pigeon problem that we have in so many cities.. all we need to do is to come up with a really effective marketing campaign on how pigeon is the new black! It really was very tasty, but I did hesitate for a moment upon learning that you get served just every part of the pigeon. The pigeon heart was so tiny, and well… heart-shaped, but it also was very tasty. I asked Bush about the soup, and he told me that it is made with 31 traditional Chinese medicines. He told me that it will ward off colds and prevent all sorts of ailments. All i know is that I was left wanting more.