In December, I went back to China for work. I'm not going to do the every-day-gets-its-own-post thing, because nobody wants to read "I went to the factory, we went to eat weird food, we went to the hotel" a dozen times. Instead, I'm going to extract a few excerpts from various letters I sent during the trip. In retrospect, I should have taken way more pictures.
"Survived my first really Chinese meal - although I did skip the frog because there were just too many organs. The first things I ate was a little fish. The dish was mini fishes and mini shrimps, intact. So I look down in my bowl and this little guy is looking up at me... I mentally shrugged and threw the whole thing in my mouth. Yolo."
"Fish, duck, pork, beef, rice... just entirely too much food, and most of it a bit weird. I told my coworkers I felt like a small child, just putting things in my mouth and seeing if they are food or not. Usually yes, but sometimes it's bone, tendon, fat, at least one blood vessel.. they have a different standard for 'meat' over here. Still tasty and still fun though!"
 |
| Pigeon, a regular and appreciated fixture of our meals. |
"Our host turned to us and said, with the utmost earnestness, 'This is ass meat'. I smiled politely, and asked 'Oh?' like I was pleasantly surprised and curious, and not like I'm suppressing the urge to laugh hysterically. Jeremy correctly guessed that it was donkey. In case you're wondering, ass meat is served cold, but is otherwise generally pretty good. We also had giant goat drumsticks (amazing), dumplings, noodles, little goat ribs, steak, cabbage, just so much food. So far this was the best meal yet."
"Dinner tonight was some great pigs legs, and a super sketchy fish head... that was smoked and actually delicious. I started the trip asking what things were before eating them. At this point I've given up, and eat whatever they put in front of me. If I'm still curious afterwards then I'll ask what it is."
 |
| Hot pot, the one meal to take revenge on me. Not sure if it was the hot peppers or my impatience cooking the meat. |
"We drove across the city, and started going down alleys. I assumed the driver was trying to take a shortcut and got lost. He was! Then we went down another dead-end-alley which wasn't a mistake. We walk into an open concrete restaurant, past a handful of fish tanks, to a table in the back. Then they started bringing out shellfish. Razor clams. Scallops. Mussels in all sizes. Giant shrimp. Crabs. After trying oysters in the states I'd written off mollusks - what a mistake. It was amazing. I ended the night with a full stomach, a pile of skeletons on the table ahead of me, and a smile on my face."
 |
| Near the end, but before I ate literally all the shrimp on the family platter. |
"'I know I can get you to try anything if I try it first and you how terrible it was' - Jeremy, after he convinced me to eat a whole peppercorn. They are so spicy they make your mouth tingle. Not because they are hot, it's a weird feeling similar to anesthetic without numbness. I'm really not sure what to compare it to, it's just weird."
 |
| (Jeremy's) shot of the Wild Animal Restaurant |
"Dinner tonight was a 'wild animal restaurant' where all the dishes (fish, chicken, and inkfish [squid]) were wild animals that they hunted. Decent food, super amusing owner who kept trying to speak american while he hung out and drank beer with us. It had a neat location down a dirty road, under a few highways, on a small lake. I love the anachronism of driving under a futuristic LED billboard to a restaurant that looks and feels like it's in the middle of the jungle and the 1950s. Oh, and the squid was great, amazingly tender."
 |
| By this point I shouldn't have been surprised by how good this fish was. When we asked if he had any more he yelled out the window and ten minutes later his daughter brought in another. Would not surprise me if she hooked it on request. |
"Today we had the typical 'omg I can't believe they eat that' Chinese food. Definitely edible, but I can definitely see why dog has not caught on in the states - almost every other animal I've eaten is better."
 |
| Before, Jeremy meeting our meat. |
"Last night in China, so we had the whole team out for a fancy dinner, which included snake! Snake is (still) great, the gall bladder is not. I spent ten minutes trying to get Jeremy to eat it, so I felt like I had to when he offered it to me instead. It's almost sweet, but it has such a terrible aftertaste... "
 |
| And deliciously after. (Jeremy) |
Jeremy and I met in the hotel bar for a whiskey to decide whether we should visit the club next door. Apart from an incredibly bizarre motto on the outside wall ("WITH YOU - ALL ARE JUST DUSTS") we know nothing about this club. Even the internet couldn't shed any light on it. We headed over around 9pm because we're in China and we're trying things and we're gonna try a club, dammit. We got metal-detectored, walked past the cover charge desk (I think, I have no idea what the desk was), and into a room of loud Eminem music, literally 20 staff, and no guests. Oh, this must just be the entry lounge, we'll get the elevator up? down? to the actual club. Nope, that's a coatcheck, and that's a restroom. This is it. Most of the staff chose this moment of confusion to swarm us, and none of them speak English. We communicate that we want beer. They bring us to a table and some couches, we sit down, they show us the menu.... it's all massively overpriced. A corona is ¥500 (~$80 usd), and budweiser is twice that. That can't possibly be correct, right? So we order two! They ask for ¥1000. I claim to only have cash, and not nearly that much. They need credit card, and need ¥1000. After a lot of back and forth we apologize and walk out, laughing. 
