BBQ?

I just ate the most delicious fish. I am literally full with warm, spicy, fishy goodness.

My friends Eric and Alison took me and Roxanne to a “Barbecue Fish Restaurant” near our apartments. What I imagine when I hear that is fish with BBQ sauce, or at least a fish on a BBQ grill. In China, that means fish in a pan flattened over vegetables and topped with chills and spices. This was one time I was not disappointed by China’s version of the truth.

Eating whole fish, as I think I’ve talked about before, is definitely one of my favorite treats of being in China. I love how soft fish meat tastes when you have to pull it out of the bones of a fish. I love crunching on fried fins, which have been cooked enough that you can eat even the bones like chips. (I’m sorry for my vegetarian readers, but to me, it’s delicious!)

I never would have been able to go on my own. It has a full Chinese menu, which leaves out picture-pointing. Luckily, with Eric, Allison, and an I-phone translator ap (not that I’m promoting those!) we were able to pick a fish, a level of chilies, and order celery, potatoes, some anonymous green vegetable, wood-ear mushrooms, rice and noodles, and of course, pi geo, which is served warm because, according to our waitress, “the chinese do not drink it cold”. (Really, there is a lot of interesting hot and cold ideas for balancing your chi in the winter. They won’t drink cold beer. But they do open the windows, even in cabs and in the bathroom, to get “new air”. I don’t know if there’s new air or what, but I do know I keep my hat on in cabs, and feel like I’m camping every time I have to use the bathroom at school.)

We also got an appetizer which was something like romaine lettuce cut up into strips and stacked on a rectangular plate doused in sesame oil and peanut sauce.
One additional treat was when they brought out our fish, flopping around in a bucket to ask us if it was big enough. (How should I know?) We nodded and sent it back.
There is something that I appreciate about the Chinese idea that food should look like what it is and where it came from. Even though I could have done without the live version, I can’t say that chicken nuggets and fish sticks are a better way to eat meat.

Cut to me, deliciously full with a fiery mouth that stands up to the Beijing winter.

Good Night!