Monday, October 1, 2007

Life List Day 196 - Try Something from a Japanese Market

My friend, Michele, needed to pick up something from a local Japanese market, so I decided I'd pick out something, too, and give it a try for my life list.

At Michele's recommendation, I bought this:


A bunch of stringy things encased in a plastic tube wouldn't normally catch my eye - or pique my appetite, for that matter. It looked like something from the movie Alien to me, but it's actually Chinese style seasoned bean thread with vegetables, according to the package.

When I went to serve it, I wasn't sure how to open the package, but I can now say for sure that stabbing it with a knife wasn't so great an idea. Bean threads and juice went flying. Still, there was plenty left to put in a bowl.

I also added cucumber and tomato, and it looked quite lovely:


I took a nice big bite...

Yech.

The sauce was an Asian vinegarette, which I like, but the texture of the stringy things was an unpleasant surprise. Real unpleasant. Like spit-it-out unpleasant.

So I did what I always do when I have a bunch of food that I don't intend to eat: I tried to unload it on my son.

"Shelly just loves it! She eats it by the truckload!" I said, giving it my sales pitch as I passed it to him (and he's just not observant enough to notice there wasn't any on MY plate).

He tried it. He spit it out.

Ah, well.

You can't win 'em all.

4 comments:

Graham Ettridge said...

Awww you are soooo wicked...lol!!!

I work for a Japanese car company here in England, and have had to try some rather obscure dishes whilst being entertained by Japanese colleagues.... the worst was whole raw potatoes injected with sugar... the taste was bad enough, but the texture was even worse and I had too keep smiling as I ate it - politely saying how nice it was.... Anyway, well done for giving it a try. At least you can now say you have experienced it!!!!

soleil said...

what interesting packaging. now i want to try some just to get the capsule.

Livingsword said...

As a frequent consumer of Asian foods I have never seen it packaged in that manner. So I thought I would Google your description:

“Chinese style seasoned bean thread with vegetables”

“My Life List” came up tenth on Google! Yet I am still not sure what exactly that dish may be called (besides: “Chinese style seasoned bean thread with vegetables”), you would think it should have a “name”.

Before I read the article and just saw the image I thought it was of a small candy!

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