Shanghai Dogma - Puppy Love

Muahahaha, I've been dreaming up stupid titles all week. Maybe "Hunt for Re-Dog-Tober" or "Shanghai Food - it's Dogtastic" but really... I like my choice, because it sounds really sweet.

So after I got some work done, I bumped into Jorge and invited him along for supper. JianZhong told me that Roy from lunch and someone named Lin Ying would join us. 6:30pm rolled around and I made plans to meet at around 6:45, I had to drop stuff at the hotel first. So Jorge and I headed off to the hotel, JianZhong was supposed to meet us in the lobby of the office building. Instead he met us in the lobby of the hotel. This guy is always in a rush it seems. So we head off to meet the rest of the gang, they were waiting for us near the office. JianZhong always seems to walk like there is an angry mob chasing him down. He is seriously always in a rush.

We get to the office and Roy had to bail on us, so we meet up with Lin Ying and Wang YeZhan, two of the map QA girls. In my mind, girls wouldn't be the first to line up for some dog, but hey, this is China. Actually it turned out that they mostly wanted to practice their English more than anything else.

We take the subway, this time it was much busier, and only JianZhong made it in the first train. Like I said... angry mob chasing him. The next train is only a couple minutes behind. So we cram in. You pretty much have to push passed people to get in the train. The next stop, under people's square, has a large hub for subways. So a large portion of the train cleared out a people's square, and the rest of the ride wasn't so bad. Not that we got a seat, but at least we weren't all smooshed.

Off the train, we find the restaurant. In the restaurant it's super hot. But hey, they've got dog on the menu so I don't really care. This restaurant was of the Gui Zhou province style. So now I've tried: SiChuan, Hunan, GuanDong, HongKong, Shanghai, HuBe and GuiZhou styles. Anyways, we order some stuff, I make sure that I hear Gou Rou, and all is well. We got some sour fish soup hot pot, you eat the fish, and then add in some tofu cubes, lettuce, cabbage and some seaweed looking mushrooms. Very good soup. We also had dumplings and noodles, but really the piece de resistance was the dog. It was very delicious, kinda like goat. In any case, it has a pronounced flavour so it's not like chicken.

Now here's where I can see people complain, I've just offended many animal activists and dog lovers all over the world. So be it, I don't care. Dog is yummy! You might think or eating dog is so cruel, the poor little dogs. Well, tough luck for the dogs, but think about this way, if our positions were reversed and the dogs were heading to some fancy restaurant. Do you think dogs would complain about other dogs eating the fancy "bald monkey" meat? I think not. If dogs were top of the food chain, they'd be eating us. Lucky for me, I'm at the top of the food chain.

See, if you think about it, people just assume that they are at the top of the food chain. But really, what have you done lately to be at the top of the food chain? Beef burrito? That gets you one up on herbivores. Nowhere near the top of the food chain. Well fish eat fish right? So you're probably up somewhere near the top of the food chain in the sea. Specially if you've had shark. But really, have you gone out of your way to claim a place for yourself in the food chain or are you just sucking down mass produced items from the grocery store? I'm out to conquer the food chain, one animal at a time. I can now honestly say that I'm higher up on the food chain than all your canine pets. Cus I ate one. You see, in the way of the world, now there's nothing you can feed your dog that would put him higher up on the food chain than me. Unless of course you fed him me... but let's not go there. You there, PETA guy with the whale harpoon aimed at me, go home.

So back to the restaurant, everyone ate some dog, and everyone liked it. JianZhong was most opposed to eating it, but in the end he tried a tiny little piece. He said it was nothing special, it just tasted like any other meat. Well, true, it's just another meat. But maybe someday I will come across the magical meat that is so awesome that other meat taste like dirt when compared to this meat. But how will I know unless I taste all available meats? Probably the only animals I wouldn't eat (apart from human, I'm no cannibal) would have to be dolphin. No dolphin eating, thanks. I might also pass on endangered species, at least until there's only 1 left... I mean, what good will one of a species do, might as well just eat it. Oh, there's PETA harpoon guy again.

Anyways, after the food, which was delicious, we went to play some pool. Hilarious. So I mentioned that man power in China is cheap, and if I didn't mention it, I'm mentioning it now. Anyways, we get a couple of tables and play a game. Then JianZhong calls over a waitress. Ok, maybe he's thirsty. Nope not thirsty, she's there to rack the balls for you. Hahahah, her only job is to talk around, pull balls out of the pockets and rack them up for the players. Wow, service with a smile. Crazy stuff. We played some pool, the 8 ball is called Hei Ba Qiu sounds like "hey bah chi-oh" it means black eight ball. I chatted with the girls, tried to teach Wang YeZhan how to hold a pool cue. She got better, I think.

It got late pretty fast, so we left. Lots of fun was had. JianZhong took the bus, the girls hopped into a cab and Jorge and I walked home. It wasn't very far, it only took 10 minutes. My hotel room was crazy hot, I think I've figured out the AC though. When it's really hot out (more than 25 degrees) they turn the AC on, and my room gets cool. When it's nice and "cool" out (less than 25 degrees) they turn it off and my room gets hot. So yeah, it was kinda better when it was 37 outside, cus at least my room was cool. Not so anymore, everywhere is 25 now.

This morning I had another hot dog egg cake for breakfast, with some orange juice. Then I got Wang YeZhan and Lin Ying on my msn, so we chatted for a while. Then I did some work. Then I went to lunch with Charles, GuoMing and uh... ZhuYuen probably not how you spell his name, but that's what I'm sticking with. We went to XinJiang Islam Restaurant, Muslim food from XinJiang province. Lots of tasty lamb, and we had some mountain horse, whatever that is. The horse tasted like ham, it was the same cut and prepared in a similar fashion. Very good though. They were all out of camel and mountain deer though. Oh well. I'll have to get those some other time.

Tonight Jorge and I are going to Xin Tian Di I believe. It's the foreigner's area. Should be fun.