All too often today I see people trying force their tastes on others. Now you might say I do this too on my Tasteful Thursday articles, but I'm not forcing them on you. It's not like you have to read these articles, and I'm not going to pout if you have a different opinion on the matter. You'd be wrong, but I'm' not going to lose sleep at night over it. Sushi is a good example. Some people like it and I happen to know a few of them. Occasionally they'll suggest we go out to eat and order it. And I'll say I don't like it. Then they'll proclaim their bewilderment that I don't like it and say that I must not have had good sushi before. As if these mid-Westerners are the authority on good and bad sushi. Well I don't know if it qualifies as "good" or not, but I've had it at one of Tokyo's finest and I didn't like it so back off.
But having said that I am still willing to try new dishes. Last night I went out with a group of people for Chinese. We drove 20 minutes to get to the restaurant that according to my Chinese friend is the best in the area. The place on the outside looks like a dive. But do not get me wrong, most of the best restaurants I've been too have absolutely no curbside appeal. It's one of those strip mall Chinese restaurants, but the place was packed noticeably by Asians. Considering we were in the middle of nowhere in farm country, it was pretty impressive seeing such a large collection of Asians in one place. So I was happy to see that this place must be clearly be highly regarded by the very people it caters to.
My friend went up and ordered for us. In China you generally get a lot of different dishes and then share them. He got a bunch of different ones, some mushroom dish, crispy tofu, baby calamari (baby squid), mock chicken rolls (pork instead of chicken hence mock), chicken ribs, beef and basil, crispy fish and maybe more that I cannot remember. Most of the food was pretty tasty. The chicken ribs, beef and basil, and even baby calamari were good. But my problem with Asian food, and especially tofu is the texture. Tofu to me feels like slime in my mouth, and in this country we are generally raised to equate slimy food with food that's gone bad. The calamari did taste good but it was chewy, and chewy meat grosses me out because I've come to associate that with poorly cooked meat like chicken. Plus I really didn't like seeing the little baby legs. The presentation just looked wrong, tasty or not. The beef was tasty too but the problem is that they covered it in a sauce so I had trouble seeing if the quality of the beef was good or not. When I eat out, I like to make sure the chiefs aren't cutting corners. The fish was tasty too but the big problem with that is we weren't anywhere near a place where fish should be coming from.
So in short the taste of the Chinese food we had was quite yummy, but the textures of the dishes were not pleasing to my Americanized familiarities. The idea behind this little adventure is too start up a group that goes out every now and then to try out foreign foods. So far we've got German, Lebanese, and Jordan places in mind.
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