Feet Treat
We paid another visit to the Pearl Restaurant at the weekend. You may remember this restaurant, it’s the extremely Chinese restaurant at the end of our road, the one where J ate chicken’s feet, and my bag gets a chair of its own. (In fact, on this occasion, it not only got a chair of its own, but also got carefully covered up by a napkin. Whether this was because they didn’t trust us to keep food under control with our chopsticks, or whether they realized that despite the Gucci label, my bag was in fact a £2 fake from XiangYang Market, I wasn’t able to work out).
J was very excited, keen to demonstrate her culinary bravery to our American friends by sucking on some more chicken’s feet. You can only imagine her disappointment when the waiter sadly shook his head and regretfully advised that the chicken’s feet were off, as it were. Still, J was undeterred and decided to pick some other disgusting option. Overwhelmed by the choices, she decided it best to continue with the feet theme, and, in the interests of balance, she also decided to order two of them, which meant one for her and luckily, one for me too.
I was a bit surprised when the feet eventually arrived. A chicken’s foot is about the size of a golf ball. These feet were nearer the size of rugby balls. And, interestingly, were floating in gravy. I have never seen gravy here before, and certainly never with a foot in it. Just as curiously, the waiter rushed over to me at this point with a knife and fork. Presumably they think we always use a knife and fork to eat feet. Or maybe he just didn’t think I would be able to pick it up with my chopsticks. (I should point out here that when you have mastered the art of chopsticks, including picking up things like peanuts, grains of rice and lychees, the next big challenge is to do what the Chinese people do, and eat a KFC chicken wing using them. Try it.) Anyway, I made a start on the still-attached webbing with my knife and fork, but it was hopeless (a bit like carving a spare rib), so I gave in, picked it up and ate it with my fingers.
You may have noticed by now that I haven’t actually said what the feet originally belonged to. This is because I don’t know what the feet originally belonged to. They tasted like turkey, but we didn’t think turkeys have webbed feet, so can only assume they were duck. I didn’t think ducks had such big feet, but then I suppose I never really thought about it before.
And so, I ate all my foot, webbing too, and it was surprisingly tasty. And then they came round and put boiled rice in the gravy, so I ate all that too. And J? Well, she pretended it was ET’s hand for a while (when held upside down, it did bear a strong resemblance), she pretended it was a strange growth coming out of her forehead, and she even made it do a little one-footed dance. Oh, and she ate it as well.
J was very excited, keen to demonstrate her culinary bravery to our American friends by sucking on some more chicken’s feet. You can only imagine her disappointment when the waiter sadly shook his head and regretfully advised that the chicken’s feet were off, as it were. Still, J was undeterred and decided to pick some other disgusting option. Overwhelmed by the choices, she decided it best to continue with the feet theme, and, in the interests of balance, she also decided to order two of them, which meant one for her and luckily, one for me too.
I was a bit surprised when the feet eventually arrived. A chicken’s foot is about the size of a golf ball. These feet were nearer the size of rugby balls. And, interestingly, were floating in gravy. I have never seen gravy here before, and certainly never with a foot in it. Just as curiously, the waiter rushed over to me at this point with a knife and fork. Presumably they think we always use a knife and fork to eat feet. Or maybe he just didn’t think I would be able to pick it up with my chopsticks. (I should point out here that when you have mastered the art of chopsticks, including picking up things like peanuts, grains of rice and lychees, the next big challenge is to do what the Chinese people do, and eat a KFC chicken wing using them. Try it.) Anyway, I made a start on the still-attached webbing with my knife and fork, but it was hopeless (a bit like carving a spare rib), so I gave in, picked it up and ate it with my fingers.
You may have noticed by now that I haven’t actually said what the feet originally belonged to. This is because I don’t know what the feet originally belonged to. They tasted like turkey, but we didn’t think turkeys have webbed feet, so can only assume they were duck. I didn’t think ducks had such big feet, but then I suppose I never really thought about it before.
And so, I ate all my foot, webbing too, and it was surprisingly tasty. And then they came round and put boiled rice in the gravy, so I ate all that too. And J? Well, she pretended it was ET’s hand for a while (when held upside down, it did bear a strong resemblance), she pretended it was a strange growth coming out of her forehead, and she even made it do a little one-footed dance. Oh, and she ate it as well.
posted by Linda at 8:53 AM
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