Impulsiveness

I can be rather impulsive from time to time. Sometimes this gets me into trouble and sometimes it's just plain fun. Let me illustrate. Last month as a joke, Timio called up the editor of the Focus on Dalian expat magazine offering to review restaurants in Jinshitan. The editor must be more desperate for articles than we thought because she accepted with enthusiasm. Begin dine-out Jinshi! Last week, Timio, Anita, and I ate at Tudoni (not the actual name of the restaurant - all restaurants in Jinshi are named after their best dish). In true journalist form, Timio came equipped with notebook, pen, and translator. When we got there, another couple was just finishing off their dinner. One of the customs that frequently annoys Anita and I is that the Chinese will often order more food than they can eat and then leave copious amounts of leftovers on the table in a display of wealth. It was kind of ironic at this particular restaurant since the average dish cost about 5 quai (1 dollar). The couple at the Tudoni place had ordered too much and left a dish of potato, eggplant, and green pepper (one of my favourites) virtually untouched. After going through the usual ritual of complaining about the waste of good food, I decided to take care of things and steal the leftovers to eat ourselves. While the waitress wasn't looking, I quickly ran over to the other table and swiped the food. The waitress was confused when she came back and asked us what we were doing. "Wo men yao jigga (We want this)," I replied in my best broken Chinese. Timio and Anita were embarrassed to be seen eating with me at first, but then they gave me props for my gutsiness. We enjoyed a huge meal of tudoni (mashed potatoes with pork, cilantro, onions, peppers, and a raw egg on top), slimy pork (Anita's best translation of the dish), egg and chive, and donkey dumplings. I've eaten my fair share of chicken feet, raw squid, fish eyes, and octopus, but somehow I had a hard time sampling the donkey. In the end it tasted surprisingly like beef, although the texture was different. It was a pretty nice piece of ass. After dinner, Timio interviewed the restaurant owner and got the actual name of the restaurant and the contact information. Since there are no real street names in Jinshitan, the best address we could come up with was "third dingy alleyway on the left". The only other distinguishing feature is a stinky outdoor washroom, but we figured that might not be an appetizing landmark for a restaurant review.

This weekend I went to Dalian on Friday night to reward myself for finishing my report cards. Anita and I met up with Edgar, Shannon, and Christine for a fabulous dinner at an authentic Japanese restaurant. We had the best chicken skewers and grilled makeral. Best of all, we enjoyed a couple bottles of plum sake with our meal. The next day Edgar, Christine and I explored Xinghai square, which is a wealthy district on the oceanfront. We pretended to be interested in purchasing some condos, so we went inside one of the fancy buildings and browsed brochures while the staff served us tea. They're building my dream condos there - complete with huge kitchens, bathtubs and even a grand piano. The walk-in closets alone are the size of our rooms now. The waterfront was spectacular. We bought a bag of bird feed for 5 quai to feed the flocks of pigeons. Later we met up with Anita and Mark at Peace Plaza for lunch. Mark took us to a great Korean buffet for only 43 quai. I ate pork and beef Korean barbeque to my heart's content. The restaurant had a gorgeous grand piano untouched in the centre. Mark dared me to go up and play it, so being my impulsive self, I took him up on the dare. Edgar played the role of my bodyguard as I tickled the ivories. One of the waiters came up to me and I assume tried to tell me to stop, but I played ignorant. Eventually the manager came up and started closing the piano on my hands, so I stopped. It was a shame - it was the nicest piano I've touched in China (which isn't saying much). The next project is planned impulsiveness involving a test drive of a Ferrari. Stay tuned for more details.