Memories of China: Food Poisoning

I ate a lot in China. A ridiculous amount of food, things that I would never normally eat but I simply had to just for the spectacle, to say that I've tried it. Other times I grabbed something from a street vendor so I could take a picture of it.

I never claimed to be a smart man, my motto often times is "Do it, just because you can do it".

This leads to me eating things like this deep fried bird thing. I have no idea what it is, some kind of chick? For all I know they grabbed a bunch of chickadees. I hoped that the oil was enough to burn away any bacteria.

Seasoning salt kills bacteria too right?

But that didn't give me food poisoning. No. So I guess that if you deep fry something enough, it makes it safe to eat. Good knowledge for any traveller.

Now for anyone who remembers, one of the tours I was in a city called Chengdu. For anyone who cares, it's in the province of Sichaun. Now why this is important is because the people in this province are known for cooking in a particular way.

And I hate it.

It's overly spiced and/or spicy with food that ends up being especially oily/fatty/greasy. They even have their own type of "spiciness" which is characterized by your mouth going numb. That's right. Having your mouth numb = Spicy. It's caused by these special peppercorns that they use. And I can't say I care for them. Most of the meals provided by the tour group were unappetizing to me.

But one meal stuck out. And that was the Sichaun hotpot. Hotpot is basically where you have a pot of boiling broth or water at a table, and everyone cooks food in the pot at the same time. What made the Sichaun hotpot different was that the broth was Sichaun style. Lovely.

And there was one meat that I had to try.

Yes those are brains.

Maybe if I ate it in a different environment I would have enjoyed it more? But the brain was very gritty and yet, mushy. There wasn't much taste but I couldn't bring myself to eat the whole portion.

But, the brain didn't give me food poisoning either.

Later in Taiwan when we were in the night market I would find more interesting things to eat. My friends told me to find a dish which literally translates into "Small intestine in large intestine". In reality it's just small and large intestine sausages. I did find a stall selling it and it was extremely greasy and oily.

I tried giving some to a wandering stray dog and he ignored me.

I don't really blame him.

But no, this greasy mess didn't give me food poisoning. Neither did the offal that I got from a street vendor in Hong Kong, or the chicken cartilage from Macau, or the questionable peanuts on the boat ride in Guilin, or the riceballs from 7-11.

None of the things I ate in China gave me food poisoning.

So you ask, what did? What did I eat that caused me to puke for the first time in probably a decade? That made half my family sick and gave my Dad intestinal problems for half a week?

Airline food from these guys.

I hate these guys.

I apologize in advance if anyone reading this works at United or has loved ones working at United but I cannot stand this airline. Fairly poor service, barely mediocre flights, and seriously, when your food is worse than everything I ate in a country with questionable (if any) hygiene standards, something is wrong.

I hope to never fly with them again. I was lucky to be bedridden for only one day, my Dad was still vomiting and have diarrhea over half a week later.

Probably not a good idea to eat the vegetarian option either.

Never Eating There Again

I don't consider myself a picky eater. Unless it's something I'm allergic to or it's Chinese food I'll probably happily eat it with no problems.

I am so sick of eating rice nearly every day.

I love what my parents would call "white" food and I love eating out at "white" restaurants. The idea of a cream based soup is completely foreign to Asian restaurants much to my dismay and I'm too lazy to eat around bone or pick away fat and skin. So when even I refuse to eat at a "white" restaurant anymore, you know there are some serious issues with the establishment.

Such an example would be the restaurant some friends and I went to for lunch over the weekend. It's a fairly well known diner and supposedly one of the best nearby campus. I ate there once and wasn't impressed but I was willing to give it a second chance. Maybe they had an off day or something.

Still the least impressive club sandwich I've ever had though.

It being cold and windy I felt like a bowl of soup. They had two specials that day. Some boring chicken, lentil and bacon soup AND (I kid you not), a pumpkin pie soup with whipped cream.

Pumpkin pie soup with whipped cream.

Are you kidding me.

What maniac would make this soup? What kind of an idiot would order this?

Obviously, I did. Why? Because why not, that's why.

Yes Damian, yes you are.

Anyways, eventually my soup and salad arrive and I have to say that I'm still apprehensive. The whipped cream was nice, I mean how can you screw up whipped cream?

And then I get to the soup.

Have you ever had a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks? Well, imagine it to be thicker, with inconsistent salty and/or very cinnamon heavy sections and that was pretty much what my soup tasted like. I don't think I've ever had a soup that unappetizing.

Oh, and my tabbouleh salad wasn't that great either, I just ate all the tomatoes and left the rest.

I felt like Byran for the rest of the day for some reason too.

I asked around and apparently the restaurant used to be really good but that was before the original owner sold the place. But that's not my problem, I'm avoiding the place from now on at all costs. Pumpkin pie soup... seriously...