Today was yet another productive day at the stylish Guangzhou office of Saatchi & Saatchi. Yes the office was pretty much the same with its comfort rooms, people snoozing away at their desks at noon, central perk cafe, wave theatre etc. and the meeting was also pretty much the same - the same brain-stretching discussions and agreements for 9 hours. But it was productive I have to admit, and I quite enjoyed myself in spite of feeling totally exhausted by the end of it.
Anyway, so other than my work which seems to be the greatest thing in my life currently, what made my day beautiful today you may ask. The answer is - FOOD! This China trip surely turned out to be a lot more tastebud-focused than I could have imagined. Today's dinner was at yet another Cantonese restaurant where about 25 different dishes were served. And they were really good! I think it is absolutely a wrong perception that authentic Chinese food is bland and healthy. It in fact can be really spicy or sour or salty and it definitely is not healthy. This is the key thing I have learnt about Chinese food about the last few days and it is the key reason why I am enjoying it so much. It's just the kinda food I love - tasty, which usually results in it being unhealthy! Some of the highlights were buns that are eaten after being dipped in - guess what - condensed milk!!, a dessert that had grated coconut and peanuts, an amazing veggie soup and an interesting pork dish among others.
AND very importantly, I had my first (and probably the last) helping of F.R.O.G meat. Now now, it's not that am an adverturous person when it comes to trying out exotic meat. It all started because my colleague, an Australian babe, decided she wants to have frog meat. That was a shocker because just like me, she had declined a chicken dish simply because along with the meat from the rest of the parts of the chicken's body, they had also aesthetically placed its head complete with beak on the plate. That had ruined both our interest in it while the rest of the crowd zipped through the dish, apparently unaware that the chicken was looking at them. Just when I thought I had found at least one person who had the same sane taste as mine, she says, "I wanna have frog. But I will have it only if you have it."
Me: "Erm.. .OK... but why do you want me to have it?!"
She: "You musssssttttt!!!"
(I didn't think that was a convincing argument so I hesitated).
Me; Erm.....
She: Come one, let's be adventurous!!! We should try it once at least!!!
After a bit of to and fro on this, we decided to give it a try. The Chinese table turned and the dish landed in front of us. We stared at it. And picked up a piece each. Both our pieces turned out to be garlic instead of frog meat. Upon another colleauge insisting that the garlic is like super good, I had it but must say I don't share his opinion about it. Anyway, after consuming the garlic from a frog dish, the Australian chick and I felt that now we were ready to take on the frog itself. She picked up a leg (which looked more like a tiny drumlet than anything else) and I picked up something that happened to look a lot worse. After tossing around the respective frog body parts on our plates for a while, we realized that we were not really making any progress with our "adventure" and now had the attention of the whole table waiting for us to just pop the damn stuff into our mouths.
The Aussie said, "OK I tell you what... lets split the leg. Yours look gross anyway."
That sounded fine. So that's what we did. She split the leg. We got a gram of frog meat each. We countdown till 3. "Should we chew?!!", the babe asks interrupting the countdown at one point. "Yes please, am not gonna swallow a frog for sure!", I said dramatically. We popped it into our mouths. The crowd clapped. It was over. We are officialy frog eaters.
Xie Xie Ni China. Am one of yours.
767 more to go.
P.S. In case you are wondering what it tasted like, well... it had no taste whatsoever. I guess they did make this one bland.
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