IT WAS A CRADLE FOR UNDERAGE DRINKING AND SECOND-HAND SMOKE, AND WE LOVED IT LIKE MOTHER’S MILK
THERE are many virtues about Beijing, and as far as I’m concerned, they are all true. The widely studied, highly evolved lung-capacity of its residence to withstand extremely volatile air molecules is among the most celebrated. The profound unity and rewardless participation in the national sport of competitive spitting, for god and country, is none but true patriotism. Then, perhaps the most famous although not as extraordinary as the former points, that it’s true, these fine citizens do know how to roast a damn duck.
Like actually actually.
But the most extraordinary things are those that go unadvertised. The best-kept secret, the silent do-er in this fine metropolis is tucked away in every unknown streets and corners, and I mean every streets and corners. It’s the most note-worthy and representative of Beijing street-food scene, and as far as I’m concerned, it is this word – 串.
THIS IS MAH-KHAO-SOI,
AS IN…
MY KHAO-SOI.
PERHAPS this doesn’t come as a shocker to anyone who’s been stopping by for awhile, but I would like to, for once at least as public record, to officially confess.
Before we shake hands, break breads and plan our next travelling itinerary together, it’s best that you know this about me… That to a point of being almost overbearing, I have an unhealthy, perverted… RAPACIOUS fixation on anything and everything that falls under the category of – street foods.
You, too! I heard? No. No, unfortunately I’m afraid, not like this.
I’m talking about an uncurbed obsession that overwrites all hygienic senses. It could lead to an unpleasant behaviours that I’m dangerously comfortable with, that I would look right at your fearful eyes with unaccompanied excitement, drag you if I must, to sit down on a randomly scouted location where flies are feasting on bodies of other flies, and jitter over a bowl of something that I just ordered purely through hand-signals, as looooong as it looks tasty. Then as if completely clueless, I’d turn and ask you with concealed hostility… Is there something wrong with your food?
At this point, you should know that you’re stuck with a madwoman who has no intention to eat anything under a proper roof. Ask Jason, and his collaterally-damaged digestive system has got some tearful stories to tell. I’m not proud… I’m not proud…
OK fine, I am.
You’re probably thinking, what in the world is this? Or at least the 90% of you who has never traveled/lived in New York plus the 8% who has (completely made-up statistics..), but stuck disciplinarily to mother’s rule of never putting anything questionable from the street into your mouth, wouldn’t have the slightest clue what the hell this is. But then… then there’s the rest of the 2% you.
Well, hello there, my friend. You know you’ve been bad.
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Oh it’s Too-much-life Day. So lucky for you, you can be left alone with this salivating monstrosity without me breathing down your neck. Plus, you can’t possibly need introduction to this? OK, well fine…
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I wrote a post called Taiwan in a pot very early on when this blog just started, when most of us haven’t actually met yet. And perhaps that’s OK. Perhaps it’s wiser to have pre-mature photographs stay buried six-feet-under the surface of blogosphere, safely and quietly, just like how I forever silenced all images of my existence before 1998… But I couldn’t help but feeling that if my pettiness to hide my food-pictures wearing braises, has caused you to miss out on something great, truly great, then that just isn’t fair. So the other night when I made this for the gazillion-th of time at home, I thought I’d give you a little shout-out.
Ladies and gents, my death-meal.READ MORE
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Do you have things that you tried and tried and tried making, and it. Just. Doesn’t. Work? In the kitchen, I call them my culinary nemesis, and they can be summed up by two words, “chewy” and “layers”. You whisper these words to my ears in the middle of the night…
I pee my pants.
Previously on Lady and Pups, the bloodthirsty 9-days marathon of recipe-massacre was mercifully ended by the heroic Jasmine green tea granita, thus temporarily closed the tormenting gap between culinary imagination and reality. But the narrative failed to mention the other type of food blog-limbo. One that’s even more ill-hearted, ironic… a humorless prank that leaves the subject, in this case me, in a helpess panic with all hope diminishing after each and every other attempts to right it. In this episode, we are going to closely examine this type of sucker.
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