Feb 5th, 2008 - What's for Dinner? And Breakfast?

I wrote earlier about going out for dinner with the food pusher brigade, but I didn't go into too much detail about the food. Back home, we'll usually cook one main dish and maybe a side or two. Except of course Thanksgiving. I pull out all the stops on Turkey day. Anyone who's been over for the meal of their lives can tell you that. Here in China though, there's always about 10 different dishes on the table, each one completely different from the others. And that whole myth about them eating dog and cat over here, it's just a myth.

I'm a meat eater. When I was a kid I had a collection of T-bones rotting in my closet, but that's another story. I grew up with Chinese food that generally tasted good while you ate it, but then you felt like crap a couple hours later. Let's call it Yuk Poo. The food I've had this past week has been a far cry from Yuk Poo's. I'm amazed every single meal. There's always fresh seafood, plenty of veggies, and the starches are more than your boiled potatoes. The idea is, you take 2 or 3 bites of one dish, then move on to the next. No mixing so as not to spoil the flavour. When you eat this way, you never feel like you're overeating because you move from veggies to soup to rice to bread (which is excellent by the way. Better than Wonder Bread) to meat. It's all very good, and leaves you feeling energized afterwards.

The other night we had 2 huge King Crabs in the centre of the table. They were fresh as hell, I could tell. Mostly because they were still moving around earlier in the day when I went to the sink to wash my hands. I ate a bit of this, a bit of that and finished up with a couple of crab legs. Mmmmmm. I learned a new saying today: Wo I Chi. It literally means "I love to eat". But when you point at the food you are eating, it means "I love this food". Everyone got a big kick out of that. We all finished packing it in and everyone was full. The leftovers were all put away and I thought "Sweet! Those crabs are going to make another appearance tomorrow night!"

I went to bed with my belly full and the evil hunger forces at bay. We keep eating dinner later and later every night, and I've been having very strange dreams because of it. I woke up in the morning and lurched my way to the breakfast table. There, sitting on the table were the 2 crabs from the night before! Crab for breakfast?!?! Damn right! I dug in. This really was the breakfast of Kings. Can't wait to see what's for dinner tonight! I have a feeling it won't be Cap N Crunch.