Breakfast was as planned last night, some oats with leftover pig’s ear from last night. The ears were slightly more chewy; perhaps a good night’s rest had allowed them to relax. Heating them in the microwave probably didn’t help.
As I have been doing since the beginning, I brought leftovers to work to share for lunch, but strangely there were few takers for the ears. I only found two people willing to try them, where I usually have more requests than portions. Both of the guys said the ears tasted good, but the texture was a bit too much for them to…ahem… swallow.
At dinner I had a chance to knock another body part off the list. The Northern Chinese restaurant had pork intestines on the list; I’ve had them a couple of times and found that they’re best when deep fried. But a couple of items down the “Pork” section of the menu reunited me with an old friend from Taiwan…Dong Po Ro or braised pork belly. Here are my thoughts on this amazing dish from my first taste of in in Taiwan in 2010: “Pork Belly (Dong Po Ro) – Wow! No wonder the national treasure is a stone carved like the stuff. This piece of meat blew my mind and had me convinced that anyone who doesn’t eat pork should seek counsel. To deny yourself this type of food indulgence is criminal. You cut it with a spoon and it melts in your mouth; the flavour is intense. When there’s nothing left you pour the juice into your bowl and drink it. When there’s no juice left, you drink your tears which are not nearly as tasty but provide ample evidence of how good it was and how sad you are that it’s gone.”
The Dong Po Ro tasted exactly as I remembered it, but it wasn’t as tender as the one I had in Taiwan. The Canadian version could still be cut with a fork, but it definitely required firm pressure. To go with the pork belly, I had some dumplings filled with soup and pork. Similar to the Caramilk mystery, I can’t figure out how they get the soup in these things without making a goddamn mess. Not that it matters, it comparison to the Dong Po Ro, the soup-filled dumplings were a distant runner up.
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| Soup and pork filled dumplings |
The "soup" is just fat - they put a cube of it (solidified) into the dumpling, which melts when steamed. Voila, soup dumpling. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a scam! So if you let them cool down you end up with a cube of fat in the dumpling? Good thing they get eaten pretty quickly.
ReplyDeleteNext, you'll tell me that there's no tooth fairy either.
It's only a scam 'cuz we're Western - they're technically not even dumplings. In Chinese, they're called xiaolongbao, which if I remember correctly just means "steamed bun". No mention of soup. :D
DeleteKeep up your Nutellvis habits and you'll be seeing a lot of the tooth fairy.