Six Taste Bizarre Food Challenge

When I think of  what constitutes as a "bizarre food",  it's not so much that I think particular foods are inherently bizarre by definition.  It's more like there are foods out there that I can't fathom myself wanting to eat. Wanting to expand my culinary horizon, I decided to take on the Six Taste Bizarre Food Challenge. Six Taste is a Los Angeles food tour company and you can read about a couple of other tours I've been on with them here and here. As for their Bizarre Food Challenge, it's a tour that you have to set up with them as a private tour. It takes place in the city of San Gabriel and the focus is on "bizarre" Chinese delicacies.

Our first bizarre bite of the day was from a Century Egg. The sheer blackness of the egg looked a bit daunting in the bright morning light, but it was a pretty background surrounding the striations of the yolk, which  looked like agate. Century Eggs are duck, chicken or quail eggs that are preserved in a mixture of clay, ash, quicklime, salt and rice hulls for several weeks to several months. They can be eaten on their own, but are usually eaten with something else like chilled tofu or mixed in a rice congee.

I think this is one food I would have liked to eat with something else.  By itself, the strong ammonia smell was off putting. When I finished eating the egg, there was a lingering sulpher taste that lingered on my palate that even a few swigs of water couldn't seem to drive away. Suffice to say, this is one egg I'm happy to avoid in the future.

Afterwards, we walked over to Aji Ichiban, which our guide referred to as a Taiwanese-Japanese Branded-Chinese Snack Shop. Got that? I actually had to write that down so I could remember.  Inside, you'll find a variety of dried goods like dried fruit and vegetables.  You'll also find dried seafood, jerky and other types of snacks as well as candy. In fact, they even sell durian candy and of course, I got some to take home.
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This is where we dug into fried mini crabs. What was bizarre was that I had no problem munching on them; yet, when I've had fried whole smelts (which are small fish), I always cut the head off before eating the rest of the body. But then there are others who will only have fish fillets because eating from a whole fish would be too foreign. People definitely do have interesting food do's and don'ts. Me included.

Right next door was our next stop at 101 Hot Pot Cafe. This restaurant shares its name with another 101 Hot Pot Cafe that is located in the Taipei 101 Mall, which is the second tallest building in South East Asia. Here we sampled three dishes.

First up was a Steamed Stinky Tofu. Stinky tofu is basically tofu that is preserved for a several months in a brine made up of fermented milk, vegetables, meat and possibly other ingredients. I was a little worried about eating this because I had fried stinky tofu a couple of weeks ago at another restaurant and found the taste to be too pungent and a little too "rotten tasting" for my palate.  However, it was total night and day with this plate of steamed tofu. It definitely had a distinct taste, but one that I liked. Apparently, not all stinky tofu is created equal.

Our next dish was a plate of Steamed Pork Intestines.  I had to think about it for awhile before reaching with my chopsticks to snag one, especially since many of us knows what goes through the intestines.  It was actually pretty tasty with a chewy texture and I liked it even more when eaten with chili.  Our guide did pass on an important bit of information though when it comes to eating intestines. When you pick up an intestine, make sure the center is completely hollowed out.  If you see anything hanging around or blocking any part of the middle of that intestine, it may not have been cleaned enough; therefore, it's possibly unsafe to eat.

Last was a bowl of soup that our guide referred to as a good hangover soup.  Ingredients included more pork intestines as well as pork blood cubes.  I've never been a blood fan when it comes to my food. I just find the taste to be really minerally plus I have to admit to a slight repulsion to eating "blood" foods in general. I did have a little of that blood cube with a spoonful of soup and that was enough for me.

Our next stop was upstairs at Tasty Village. By the way, I may have forgotten to mention that the majority of our tour took place at Focus Plaza, which is home to 99 Ranch Market, restaurants and other businesses. Here we shared a plate of jellyfish. I've actually had jellyfish before and just like then, I enjoyed its cool and crunchy texture.

After we enjoyed the jellyfish, we walked next door to Ay Chung Noodle House, which is a US outpost of the same restaurant that exists in Taiwan.  However, in Taiwan, Ay Chung Noodle House is literally a hole in the wall night market stand with no seating and no trashcan.  Customers eat standing up out of bowls which they then return to the restaurant when they're done.  There they only serve a couple of items. Chung is also the last name of the family that runs these restaurants.

While the San Gabriel location has a bigger menu then their Taiwan counterpart, what they are known for are their rice noodle soups and stinky tofu.  The first thing we had was their Small Intestine Rice Noodle Soup made with soy sauce, garlic, a Taiwanese-style vermicelli noodle and thickened with cornstarch. I enjoyed the flavor of the soup, was fine with the intestines, but the soup just had too much of a thick and gloopy texture that I didn't care for.

As for the Fried Stinky Tofu, I also really enjoyed it. Like the steamed version I had earlier, it also had a distinct flavor to it that wasn't unappealing.

From Ay Chung Noodle House, we took a walk away from Focus Plaza to Nature Pagoda.  The owner of this restaurant also owns a Chinese Medicine Shop at Focus Plaza so some of the foods at Nature's Pagoda are made from various Chinese herbs. Our stop here started innocently with a plate of vegetable dumplings.

Then that plate was joined by two different soups. The first soup was Turtle Soup with a Chinese herb broth that included ginseng and goji berries.  This was the first time I've ever had turtle soup.  The turtle pieces looked like little beef spareribs and also tasted beef-y to me, but others in the tour thought that the turtle tasted more like duck.

I almost wish that we stopped with the turtle soup because the next soup was definitely a hard mountain to climb for me and for the majority of my group. Before our guide told us what was actually in the soup, he talked about traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine.  One of the premises is the belief that whatever organ you eat can replenish a similar or same organ in your body.  For example, if you're having liver problems, you'd eat liver.  He also mentioned how eating black sesame seeds is thought to keep away gray hair.

The role of the main ingredient in our mystery soup is suppose to help with male virility; hence, what we had before us was an Ox Penis Soup.  If I was hesitant about eating the pork intestines, I was even more so about eating this ox penis.  After all, I don't need help with my male virility.  It didn't help that it looked exactly what it was supposed to be, but this was a Bizarre Food Challenge, so I eventually did the deed.  However, I couldn't fathom chewing it, so I just swallowed it whole and yes, I've heard all the jokes already. :-P

From Nature Pagoda, we went to Tasty, a Chinese dessert place.  I've only been here once before and it was on the Six Taste New Chinatown Tour.  On that tour, our dessert was a mango-coconut dessert.  For this second visit, we had a similar dessert, but with a twist.

This particular dessert included black rice, coconut milk ice, fresh mangoes and frog fallopian tubes. Yes, frog fallopian tubes.  Like the ox penis, there is a purpose for eating frog fallopian tubes and it has to do with helping with a woman's fertility. As for the frog fallopian tubes, they looked like jelly or a soft jello which you'd find in a lot of Chinese desserts and/or drinks. There wasn't much flavor to them and since I had no issue with the texture, I didn't have a problem eating them, but it's not something I'd go out of my way to order again.

I got two things out of taking this tour.  I can definitely say that my culinary horizons have been expanded a bit further. First, I'm more open to the thought of eating pork intestines than I was in the past. Second, stinky tofu really can taste good as long as you go to restaurants that know the best way to prepare them.  Third, I wouldn't turn down a bowl of turtle soup if someone offered it to me.

I also reaffirmed to myself that just because certain foods are enjoyed by others, it doesn't mean that I have to like or even eat them (again), regardless of why.  I'm glad that I tried the Century Egg, had a bite of that blood cube and even swallowed that ox penis, but there doesn't have to be repeat performances for any of those foods for me.  But if I decide never to eat a blood sausage, haagis, a scorpion or a guinea pig, that's okay, too.  It's my prerogative.

In the end, while I have my limits, I do have a pretty adventurous palate compared to many.  That was very evident when I started regaling my co-workers about all the interesting food that I ate on that tour.  My audience wasn't to keen on the century egg and the stinky tofu but once I got to the pork intestines, I completely lost them.  Can you imagine how they would have reacted to the ox penis and frog fallopian tubes? Now that would have been interesting.

Aji Ichiban
140 W Valley Blvd
Suite 109
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 280-6383

101 Hot Pot Cafe
140 W Valley Blvd
Suite 108
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 288-7088

Tasty Village
140 W Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 571-1178

Ay-Chung Noodle
140 W Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 280-0186

Nature Pagoda
312 W Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91778
(626) 570-8333

Tasty
250 W Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91778
(626) 282-8263

Six Taste Contact Info
Six Taste Website
Six Taste on Facebook
Six Taste on Twitter

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Chinatown Thanksgiving Dinner at Plum Tree Inn

 

When it comes to Thanksgiving dinner, visions of roast turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce and maybe, even green bean casserole probably dance in your head. For a change of pace, why not try something different? That's exactly what the Chinatown Business Improvement District wanted myself and other food bloggers and writers to do by inviting us to their 2nd Annual Chinatown Thanksgiving Dinner at the Plum Tree Inn.
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Our evening started with some appetizers that included Vegetable Dumplings, Beef Skewers and my favorite of the three, Sesame Chicken.

From then, it was on to a 9 course meal with wine pairings by San Antonio Winery. Before I start talking about about the food, let me give you bullet points about the 3 factors that go into naming a Chinese dish.

• The appearance of the dish (e.g. Lion's Head Meatballs, Ants Climbing a Tree) 
• The person who supposedly invented the dish or caused the dish to be invented (e.g. Kung Pao Chicken, Pockmarked Tofu, Beggar's Chicken) 
• How the dish is made (e.g. Crossing the Bridge Noodles) 

Interesting bit of information, don't you think? Ok, now on to our first course, which was a Minced Chicken Lettuce Cup. Apparently, this dish is based on a famous Cantonese recipe for squab.  Not being a squab fan; however, I was happy to see and eat the chicken.  Don't be afraid to just pick it up and eat it taco-style. No chopsticks needed.

Our second course was all about the Beijing Duck (or also known as the Peking Duck) and is something you'd have in place of the turkey. Roast duck has been around since the Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368) and was originally just a dish meant for the Imperial Court.  It took about 200 years or so for a roast duck restaurant to open and even then, it was still only a dish favored by the upper class. By mid-20th century, roast duck had become a national symbol of China and was enjoyed by everyone.

The Beijing Duck at Plum Tree Inn is served on a plate with crispy skin surrounding some of the duck meat in the middle.  It also comes with shallots, thin pancake wrappers and plum sauce, which along with the skin and the meat, a server will prepare tableside a duck burrito for you to enjoy.

Doesn't the inside of this duck burrito look delicious?

From duck, our next course was Lion's Head and I'm going to insert the word "Meatballs" after Lion's Head because basically, this was a big meatball dish. The cabbage covering the meatballs represented the lion's mane. Originally, this dish really had nothing to do with lions.  Instead, it had to do with an Emperor who loved the landscapes of Yangzhou in Southeast China and asked his cooks to interpret them through food.

Hence, the look of this dish did look like a landscape but it wasn't actually called Lion's Head until the Tang Dynasty because others felt this dish also resembled a male lion's head. A rose by any other name, etc. etc.  Regardless of the name, they were moist, had nice texture and were tasty.

Our next course was Two Flavored Shrimp with one being Sauteed Shrimp and the other being Sweet and Pungent Shrimp. I found the Sauteed Shrimp to be a bit bland and doctored it with chili and while the Sweet and Pungent Shrimp didn't lack in flavor, it was a little too sweet for my liking.

Following the shrimp dish came the Crispy Beef. I really loved the texture of the meat.  The sauce it was cooked in tasted similar to the Sweet and Pungent Shrimp, but it had a bit of heat which I really enjoyed.

Beijing Duck is usually accompanied by a Beijing Duck Soup with a broth made from the duck bones, so that nothing goes to waste. I have to say that I had Beijing Duck and Soup before in a couple of other restaurants, but this was by far the best Beijing Duck Soup I've had so far.  When a soup is good on its own without the addition of any seasoning apart from what's already in there, that's pretty darn good soup.

Our second to the last savory dish was the Kung Pao Three Delicacies with Shrimp, Scallop and Fish. The history behind Kung Pao dishes is really interesting. It is common knowledge that this dish is named after an official; however, from there it all gets rather murky. In some versions Kung Pao is a general who lived during the Ching dynasty. In others, he is a crowned prince who discovered this dish while travelling and brought it back to the Imperial Court. There's even some confusion about whether the dish originated in Shanghai or Szechuan.

Cookbook author Helen Chen provides an interesting twist on the story. In Chinese Home Cooking, she states that Kung Pao was the title given to the person charged with protecting the heir apparent, as Kung meant castle and Pao meant to protect. During a certain period, the Kung Pao was a man whose favorite dish happened to be spiced chicken with peanuts, and thus over time it was named after him. Whatever the case, the stories demonstrate the Chinese belief that naming a dish after an important figure gives it more prestige. As for Plum Tree's Kung Pao dish, I would have liked to be just a bit hotter, but I still enjoyed it.

Our last dish before dessert was the Asparagus with Chinese Mushrooms. Apparently, asparagus appears late in the history of Chinese cuisine, but today, Taiwan has made a major industry of exporting asparagus.  It was actually nice to have an all vegetable dish. I wish it had come just a bit earlier.  The asparagus was a little too crunchy for me, but I love the juicy, meaty Chinese mushrooms.

Finally, our meal ended with a simple Sesame Rice Ball Soup with Rice Wine.  I don't like desserts that are too sweet and this was the perfect way to end our meal.

While we had our Chinatown Thanksgiving Dinner at Plum Tree Inn, there are other Chinatown restaurants that will have Bejing Duck and/or Chinese-Style Turkeys available for eat in or take out.  And yes, I did say turkey because if  having duck instead of a roasted turkey is still an issue for some of you, don't despair.

You can still have turkey, but what about a Chinese-style roasted turkey instead? Carefully steeped in a soy sauce marinade spiked with star anise, two different kinds of vinegar and sweet syrup, this turkey is then roasted, giving way to a crispy outside with a moist inside. So you really can have your turkey and eat it, too. Click here for a list of those Chinatown restaurants and a Happy Early Thanksgiving to you and your family!

A special thanks to Linh Ho of the Ideation Agency who provided all the Chinese Food History written in this post!

Plum Tree Inn
913 N. Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90012
213-613-1819
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The Formerly Overlooked, But Never Again Ignored Happy Kitchen

 

When it comes to the Chinese restaurants in San Gabriel Valley, there's a good thing and a bad thing about them.  The good thing is that there are a lot of Chinese restaurants in San Gabriel Valley. The bad thing is that there are a lot of Chinese restaurants in San Gabriel Valley.  Bad in the sense, that with so many to choose from, it's very easy to overlook a really wonderful restaurant amidst some that are just so-so.  That was the case for me when it came to Happy Kitchen.

Funnily enough, in the strip mall where Happy Kitchen is located, I had previously eaten at restaurants on either side of Happy Kitchen, but didn't even know of its existence until I took the Six Taste New Chinatown Tour. On that tour, the three items we had were delicious enough that I knew I wanted to return for a full meal, which is exactly what I did.

So off I went with my dining group for an early lunch at Happy Kitchen where we got to enjoy 12 different dishes, starting with their Lamb Rice Noodle Soup which is cooked in a sea snail broth. Sea snails were also in the soup and this is one bowl that I could have easily just eaten on my own as an entree soup. It was delicious. The broth had a wonderful combination of ocean flavors from the sea snails and a little bit of richness from the lamb.  I also liked that there was some heat to this soup, but not so much that it was overwhelming.
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Having enjoyed the Beef Roll from the tour, I ordered it again and it was still as good as before. The wrapper had a light crunch to it and the cilantro added a nice peppery kick to the tender beef.

 

I'm a bit ambivalent about the a couple of the dumplings we ordered.  Although I thought the fillings of both the Beef Steamed Dumplings and the Shrimp and Pork Dumplings were nicely seasoned, the dumpling wrapper was too thick for my taste.

When it came to the Steamed Pork Bao, I had no ambivalence at all.  They were supposed to be like Xiao Long Bao aka Soup Dumplings, but there wasn't any soup to be found inside this bao at all.  So that was disappointing.

Another dish to hit the table was the Ginger Arctic Clams. The cool crunch of the celery went well with the tender chew of the clam.  This is one plate of food that would be perfect on a very hot day.

For this particular meal, we had Cumin Lamb in two different dishes. The first was Cumin Lamb Pan Fried Noodles and the other was Pan-Fried Cumin Lamb. Both tasted good and I liked how the chili flakes added a zing of spice to both dishes.

Also on the agenda for the meal was the Tea Smoked Chicken Leg. The smoking of this chicken leg is a 6 hour process. Thankfully, we didn't have to wait 6 hours, but it would have been worth it. I love the fact that the chicken is tender and moist and of course, had a wonderful smoky flavor.

 

Of everything we had up to that point, the absolute best was saved for last and that was the Double Cooked Pork. O M G!  I rarely say OMG, but wow, this dish was that and more.  I have no idea how it was prepared. I'm thinking it was battered and double-fried, but it didn't really matter. It was just so good.  We were all feeling pretty full, but we all made room to eat some of this pork. In fact, a couple of my fellow diners even ordered it to go.

For dessert, we had Fried Sesame Balls, which were served to us warm. What a perfect ending to the meal. They weren't too sweet and they had a glutinous texture to them. When you took a bite, it had a soft-chewy mouth feel to it.

Overall, this was a wonderful meal. I got to re-try a couple of items plus I was introduced to some delicious new dishes. All I can say is that Happy Kitchen is now in my radar and it's certainly a restaurant that I would be happy to dine at again and recommend.

Happy Kitchen
301 W Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 284-2619
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