Sea intestines, anyone?

Last week we went out with about a dozen of my girlfirend`s Chinese co-workers for dinner and karaoke. The latter will be a story for itself here anytime soon, today it`s all about the advantages of eating out with locals. Firstly, of course, there`s the opportunity to train your language skills - although Chinese working for international companies are able to speak English (and some even German) more or less fluently, with a ratio of two Germans to a dozen Chinese eventually a lot of Chinese was spoken and had to (at least tried to) be understood. Or not.

Anyway, secondly, there`s the chance to try dishes you so far didn`t know of, couldn`t read on the menu, that didn`t look appealing or until then you did not dare to order. But the Chinese do.

In China, when it comes to eating animals, there are no boundaries like "too cute" or "too disgusting" that would hinder them to increase their menu variety. Personally, I find that very consistent - once you`ve decided for yourself that eating animals is o.k., be it as an individual or a society, why not eat all of them. Although when going out by ourselves we mostly stick with our western socialization of ordering beef, chicken, pork, sometimes fish. 

In bigger restaurants like the one we went with our Chinese friends it is often usual that the big variety of seafood is displayed in big basins to choose from. And honestly, who of us would have ordered those little fellas in the middle of the lowermost row in the picture on the right? (click on pictures to enlarge them) Well, I wouldn`t, besides the fact that apart from being displayed in Chinese restaurants I haven`t seen them anywhere else before. But they definitely look like they`re called in Chinese - 海肠 (hǎicháng), the word-by-word translation would be "sea intestines" or "sea sausage", as the character 肠 (cháng) can mean both, intestines or sausage. Yeah, let`s you sometimes think twice before ordering something having this character in it`s name. For the fellas on the picture in my opinion "intestines" fits better. For increased disgust imagine them moving like worms, as that`s what they did in this basket.

Well, one of the Chinese obviously considered them looking tasty enough to order. To make a long story short, of course we tried them - to learn that they don`t taste as disgusting as they look - rather "harmless",with no real distinctive taste. But pretty tough to chew, though, having a stringy consistency like a rubberband. Definitely won`t become one of my favourites........