After talking with the Science Department for the park, Andrew drove us out of town and kicked us out of his jeep. Actually he pointed us on a very nice hike through a Tibetan Village. The scenery was beautiful and we didn't get lost. All the kids seem to know how to say "Hello" and "How are you?" so this was a popular query and we hiked around the village. He had told us that the Vice director wanted to take us to see Tibetan dancing so we need to be back by 6. He told us we should be able to flag down a taxi for the ride back to town. After about 20 minutes of walking and not successfully getting a taxi we were starting to worry. Just then a taxi arrived and we were transported back to Jiuzhaigou. At 6 it was decided that it was better for us to experience Chinese hot pot than Tibetan dancing. We all piled in a nice shiny black Audi complete with leather seats and a driver that drove to take full advantage of the power under the hood, managing in the short distance through town (less than 1 mile) to go 50 mph.
At the restaurant we were ushered into our own private room. In the center of the square solid wood table, was a sunken burner for putting the big bowl. Our waitress added water and lots of red peppers. We had been warned that hot pot was very hot. Food began to appear on little plates, all neatly sliced but unrecognizable, but the identity of the mystery food was revealed--cow stomach, chicken stomach, chicken esophagus, dried yak meat, fish, deep fried pork, summer sausage, tofu, potatoes, horse stomach and more. If we had been suffering from a deficiency in protein, we were certainly going to eat enough tonight!
We mixed up our dipping sauce, adding garlic, soy and cilantro. There was also a large bowl of MSG too if we had wanted. I really thought no one ate MSG anymore. By this time the pot looked like a witches cauldron, besides having all the nicely disguised questionables in it, it was bubbling, splashing dangerously close to my eyes. Fishing out stomachs from a pot of bubbling water was incredibly challenging with chopsticks and I began to think I might not have to worry about eating anything when our private server decided to step in. Every time we ate anything from our bowl, it was immediately replaced by three more things. She was very skilled at fishing things out with the chopsticks. I managed to drop my chopsticks twice. Andrew seemed shocked that chopsticks were not by native eating tool of choice at home in the USA.
About 3/4 of the way through the meal, we were brought some yogurt milk. I eagerly gulped mine down hoping that by showing enthusiasm for the milk beverage I would be rewarded with a refill as by now my mouth was tingly numb. Both Emily and I were dabbing our faces. Unfortunately the packaging holding the horse stomach had leaked, gushing onto my lap. I had to use my three stamp sized napkins that I had been given for wiping up the spillage. Even though we slammed the yogurt drink, no more came for at least another 45 minutes. In which time I accidentally ate a pepper only grown in Sichuan province that causes your mouth to go numb for 30 minutes (so I was told, I believe it was longer). The pepper is part of the opium family. I slurped tea like mad and when the next round of yogurt drink did arrive, I was just as eager to drink it quickly but no refill came.
The hot pot bowl was overflowing with meat, causing the server to be even more diligent about refilling everything we ate. Emily and I declared we absolutely couldn't eat any more. The vice director said we must and added three more kinds of mushrooms to the hot pot. Unfortunately there had been a lull of a few minutes with toasting and declaring we couldn't eat anymore--so when we finally did try some mushrooms, having boiled for over three hours now, the spice tasted like it had increased ten fold. Finally we were told that we must eat some rice soup to close the loop. This was the same rice soup that we had had for breakfast with the Tibetan family so I knew what was coming. Even though I'm not a fan of the watered down rice, to my flaming mouth and intestines, the blah rice was a welcome carbohydrate to my body.
The hot pot was a really fun experience. We learned that is originally started many many years ago. Everyone would add what they had to the pot and eat it. Now in bigger cities, we were told that people will spend as much as 1000 US dollars for hot pot. They told us big cities will have restaurants where there can be 500 people being served hot pot. Sounds like quite the craze that has hit China.
1 comment:
Thanks for writing this.
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