haonowshaokao

If you feel sentimental and protective about dogs you probably shouldn’t read my unusual food blog this week.

Unusually straightforward Chinese name – “dog meat hotpot”

What it really is – a dog meat hotpot

Location – Backstreet restaurant

Everyone knows how English people are sentimental about dogs. Given the choice to either contribute to a charity for the homeless or to one for homeless dogs, a significant majority of the public opted for the latter. The idea of eating them seems to actually offend people who never think twice about eating other meat. During the 2002 world cup people actually went over to Seoul to protest about it.
I don’t see anyone protesting about the eating of bacon, though pigs seem to be in every way more intelligent than dogs. Besides that I’ve never been attacked, threatened or snapped at by a pig.
So when I met up with my ex-girlfriend last week and she mentioned a place that served dog meat I insisted that she take me there so I could try it. The restaurant was tiny and down a series of backstreets. Here it is, and here she is:

As you can see, it wasn’t anywhere near as classy as the previous restaurant. When I first came to China I’d have probably even been scared of eating here, but now I’ve come to love these places. The prices are cheaper, the staff friendlier and the food often just as good or even better.
By the time the food had come we were joined by various acquaintances of my ex. They ordered a very expensive, very bland fish. Then the dog hotpot arrived. As with the duck parts there was an oil-lamp fire underneath, and a covered container on top.

After a couple of minutes the top was taken off to reveal the meaty hotpot goodness. Besides the meat itself there were big chunks of ginger and nothing else, no vegetables, no rice. When you’re eating a carnivore you might as well dispense with garnish.

There was a side-dish, though – a very small saucer which contained some fermented tofu. Fermented tofu is the Chinese equivalent of blue cheese – it smells even stronger and more sock-like than a ripe gorgonzola. The taste is also surprisingly similar. Most people have trouble getting past the smell. I mashed it up, took a bit of dog meat, and dipped.

I put a little into my mouth and chewed. The first flavour was the fermented tofu, sour, pungent, cheesy and delicious.

The meat itself was pretty good. The texture was like beef, but not quite as tough, and quickly softening. The flavour, under the tofu, was surprisingly mild. I’d been told to expect a strong, bitter taste, but it just wasn’t there. It was just like eating a nice piece of beef, but leaner and more tender, and with more small bones.

There was even a segment of tail in the pot. It had been skinned and cooked for a while, but I just wasn’t really up for trying that yet, so the ex ate it instead.

She was loving it.

The more I ate the dog hotpot the better it got. The ginger in the sauce complimented the meat perfectly. I’ve never really been a fan of really red meat – it’s always seemed to me to be too chewy and gristly to be really enjoyable. The dog meat was just generally nicer. The meat came right off the bone and tasted very good – mild, sweet and delicious. The ex and I polished it off in no time.

Because there were so many smaller bones in the pot, the leftovers ended up filling up a bowl. The fermented tofu had to be rationed – don’t know how I ever thought twice about eating it. There was a stray dog wandering about – I asked the ex whether she thought it would eat the bones if we gave it some. She thought it would know, somehow. I thought she had some very strange ideas. Don’t worry, we didn’t give it any.

So, all in all, dog hotpot is the heavily recommended. Don’t listen to people who say it is poisonous – that’s just the liver. Don’t listen to the people who say it tastes foul, they are evidently just eating the wrong dog. Don’t listen to people who make jokes about unidentified meat in low-priced restaurants being dog, either. It’s one of the more expensive meats and if you serve it you’d want to advertise the fact.

Update: 10/1/2007

Since I wrote this a couple of months ago there have been more comments than I can deal with. Since I haven’t the time or the inclination to reply to all of them here are some further points:

Vegetarians vs vegetarian-haters – I choose to eat meat, some people choose not to. This is all fair and good. Any further arguments are unneccecary, surely?

People don’t really normally eat dog – Around here they certainly do. I see dogs hanging up in butchers’ windows pretty much every day.

Dogs are treated cruelly – This is a tricky one, and a lot more complex than at first sight. The main problem here is getting independent information. There are a fair few sites on the internet with grisly details but these seem to all start with the premise that ‘eating dog is wrong’ and work from there. Aside from this they are all based on the Korean dog trade – I’m a long way from Korea and Cantonese food is as different as, to take an example, Italian food is from Scandinavian. This doesn’t mean they are treated well, of course, just that it is near impossible to say. Local friends have re-assured me that many of the horror stories don’t apply down here, but until I know more I won’t be eating dog again.

Personal insults – If you have something to say I’d be a lot more willing to listen to it if you stay calm and don’t resort to name-calling.

Slightly misleading Chinese name – “three duck parts”

What it really is – duck tongues, feet and shoulders in hot sauce

Location – Hunan restaurant

Keeping up to the unusualness levels of last week’s snack seemed unfeasible, so this week I made a decision to eat something a little more palatable. This Hunan restaurant looked like a fairly safe bet:

Inside, the restaurant was immaculate and utterly deserted. Chinese people just don’t eat at 4.30pm. The standout item on the menu was “three duck parts.” After eating the embryonic version there would surely be no problem eating the less palatable parts of the adult bird, right?
The food arrived in the usual quick time – first a base with an oil lamp inside, then the dish itself.

As you can see, there were three parts inside – tongue, webbed foot and shoulder. All were cooked in the Hunan style – that means lots of spices and a little oily but doesn’t make your tongue numb. There were also some hot peppers, but I’ve made the mistake of biting into them before and I’m not about to repeat it.
First I thought I’d go for a tongue.

The only way to hold it seemed to be at the base. To be perfectly frank I was previously unaware that ducks even had tongues. I’m fairly sure I’d never even thought about it. But they do, and they are thin and for some reason triangular. The two other parts seemed to be entirely cartilage, so they might have been some sort of tongue support. Ah well, here goes.

It wasn’t very nice. The outside part, under the hot sauce coating, was unpleasantly soft and slimy, the texture of boiled mucus. At the centre was a harder, rubbery bit made from very thin cartilage. It was not in any way edible. Finishing off one, I managed to get myself to eat a second. It was, if possible, worse.

The sauce was genuinely very hot. I’m used to a high level of spiciness, but this was serious enough to make me have to wash my lips.
Leaving aside the “shoulder” which didn’t appear to feature any meat whatsoever, I picked out a foot. It looked something like this:

The important difference between chicken feet and duck feet is that ducks have to swim and so therefore have webbing. This is what a webbed bird foot looks like when it’s been boiled in hot sauce for twenty minutes:

On one hand not particularly pleasant looking, on the other at least presenteing a good bitesworth of flesh with no small bones or gristle in the way. It was almost appetising.

The taste was much the same – not unpleasantly textured like the tongue but nevertheless not presenting what I could describe either as a “meal” or a “delicacy” but instead the kind of thing you may be forced to eat in a famine when you’ve finished off all the meat and vegetables. Bird feet aren’t really a problem any more, but I just don’t really see the attraction. The only thing that made it actually unpleasant was the sauce, now making my eyes water and forcing me to wash my lips – I suppose my tolerance of chilli is not as high as I’d thought.
Overall, the feet were mediocre, the shoulder not containing anything edible, the tongue near revolting, and the sauce unbearably spicy (in Indian terms a vindaloo or a phall.)
This meal is not recommended.