tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131064312008-05-09T15:53:38.175-07:00Michaelnoreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-82775410107735198592008-04-26T06:02:00.000-07:002008-05-06T23:23:55.424-07:00

We recently passed a shop in Shanghai, China that had a poster advertising ant essence. We went in to grab some and found the shop was actually an adult sex toy shop. There are lots of these all over Shanghai. They have fake viagra, exotic condoms, dildos, rubber boobies, blow-up dolls, and other plastic genitalia. Yeah, there's some really weird stuff in there. There's also tons of pills

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-79421562240231983032008-04-13T00:34:00.000-07:002008-04-13T06:19:25.680-07:00

Mountain Ant Essence @ Oxygen Bar, San Francisco. In the late 1990's we lived in the Mission District in San Francisco. This mostly Latino neighborhood (some claim it's the true birthplace of the burrito, as we know it) saw a period of gentrification and hipster-ism coinciding with the dot-com gold rush of the time. We had mixed feelings about this, but the diversity of people it drew, and the

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-24970135580242610712008-03-25T01:37:00.000-07:002008-03-24T23:23:13.228-07:00

After a month of easy village living in the South of India, we took a break from the yoga routine and went up for a wild weekend in Bombay (Mumbai). There we ran into our friends in the Smirnoff Ten, and checked out a new music club called Blue Frog. In the club's brochure, the chef claims to be knowledgeable about "obscure meats" but we didn't see any on the menu. We were told that lamb

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-35183925493536034382008-03-16T21:47:00.000-07:002008-03-16T23:50:36.120-07:00

Just finished reading the book "The Devil's Picnic" by Taras Grescoe. The author travels the world in search of illicit and illegal food and drink. He enters Singapore with a bag full of outlawed chewing gum, he hunts down real moonshine absinthe in Switzerland, and chews coca leaves in Bolivia. The book has a solid examination of the history of prohibition, and how some current laws work in

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-75968525782881420102008-02-12T05:46:00.000-08:002008-02-13T06:11:48.598-08:00

When my friend Mark David Elliot, who writes a blog called LikeALocal.cn about Shanghai food, especially cheap eats and street food, called to suggest we do lunch on Shouning Road, my initial reaction was "uh, don't you know how much I hate Shanghai cuisine? Haven't I made myself clear?" [here. and here.]. But I'm also eager to be proven wrong, at least once, about Shanghai food. Mark has a

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-279606207041302692008-01-13T07:10:00.001-08:002008-01-15T07:50:56.137-08:00

I recently did a proper restaurant review of Lao Tan, which is a Guizhou minority food restaurant near Logo bar in Shanghai. While we don't come here specifically for the strange foods they have on the menu, there are a few worth a weird meat mention. Allow me to quote myself, "Some readers might pass on the Bamboo Worms (48rmb) or the Fried King Bees (60rmb), or even the delicious Grilled

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-35989821117293964032008-01-02T00:30:00.000-08:002008-01-03T00:45:28.111-08:00

Years ago during a drunken new year everyone was chatting up their resolutions, the usual stuff, getting more exercise, eating healthy, blah blah blah. I couldn't handle it. I announced that I was going to pick up a new vice instead of a virtue. So I tried smoking cigarettes. I never had before, so it felt exciting and enjoyably reckless, but it only lasted 2 weeks. I found it a to be a chore,

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-1157615430178588242007-12-21T00:49:00.000-08:002008-02-17T02:07:03.835-08:00

Have you ever eaten a turtle shell? We were at dim sum one Sunday morning and I saw the table next to us receive an order of black jello. What was this black jello I asked my knowledgeable companions. "It's turtle shell," they said, "you'll like it." I did, and I do, often. I love the stuff. It's really best at good dim sum restaurants, where they serve it fresh, in fine

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-14898039374315563482007-11-23T21:18:00.000-08:002007-11-24T02:54:09.164-08:00

Travels in Yunnan, SouthWest China. A few miles north of Lijiang there's a charming little village called Baisha. We entered as most tourists do, into a temple ground that lies at the front. There's not much to say about temples without getting all academic on yah, but this was worth a look for the tranquility it offered after spending a few days in the bustling alleys of Lijiang. Plus

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-1172124744808580112007-10-10T22:09:00.000-07:002007-10-10T20:05:53.657-07:00

We're eating frog guts and it's a pleasant experience. Hasma is frog ovaries, or more precisely, the fallopian tubes of the hermaphrodite frog "Rana temporaria chensinensis, which is also commonly known as the snow frog or forest frog" (according to answers.com). Hasma in a sweet soup This is a delicacy in China, these frog fallopians. Like shark fin soup and bird's nest, they are treasured

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-82367670911130642972007-08-19T11:54:00.000-07:002007-08-19T09:15:59.778-07:00

Stone Forest (ShiLin), near Kunming, Yunnan, southwest China. I'd been wanting to taste bee larvae, a Yunnan Province delicacy, ever since I heard of it years ago. They take bees nests and cook up the baby larvae, and eat it as a snack or appetizer to a full meal. It was only our first full day in Yunnan, so I wasn't looking for it, I knew I'd get around to it at some point during the trip.

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-45160160170850423192007-08-06T20:55:00.000-07:002007-08-06T20:07:43.793-07:00

Boya redeems himself by eating the weird jerky I once called my friend Boya a weird-meat wimp. Today he redeemed himself. He recently returned from a trip to Australia with boxes of Crocodile Jerky and Kangaroo Jerky. He also picked up some Emu Jerky, but the jerks at New Zealand customs confiscated it. Apparently Kangaroo and Crocodile meat are OK, but we're not sure why the Emu meat wasn't

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-79998198747606367522007-07-21T01:33:00.000-07:002007-07-28T02:14:24.503-07:00

Kunming, Yunnan, Southwest China. (Yunnan Province is famous for having several ethnic minority cultures) We usually do our best to avoid places like this. You know, those restaurants that have a song-and-dance routine, and even worse, these "ethnic exploitation" places where they have these teenagers dress up in "traditional clothing" and lip-sync to obnoxious music. They act out

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-16202078677646109182007-07-08T01:19:00.000-07:002007-07-17T01:02:03.951-07:00

On location in Yunnan, Southwest China. Mom and I recently had a little vacation in Yunnan Province, Southwest China. It was our first time to the region, and we had such a good time, we're already talking about going back. I'll publish a series of stories about Yunnan's weird meat choices over the next few weeks. Yucky yak steak. Yunnan borders Tibet, and there are lots of Tibetan people in

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-20061366742362605462007-06-05T20:17:00.000-07:002007-07-17T01:08:55.316-07:00

We were doing yoga in Mysore, India. That's where the Ashtanga people go. Most of these people are vegetarians, as are most people in India. Actually, most of these Ashtanga yoga people that go to Mysore, they're not from India, but they're still vegetarian. Bylakuppe's Golden Temple -- a slice of Tibet in tropical South India Anyway, one of these vegetarians told us of a place nearby

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-1168576485063716532007-05-11T20:33:00.000-07:002007-07-17T01:13:13.425-07:00

One of my favorite areas in Hong Kong is the herbal medicine shop streets around Sheung Wan. For reasons I won't get into here, these shops carry an amazing variety of real deal Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), that you almost cannot find in mainland China anymore. In Shanghai pharmacies, for example, they look at you like you're nuts if you ask for herbals instead of pills. They think

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-75420377664900938652007-03-25T04:16:00.000-07:002007-08-05T03:52:31.921-07:00

I was cast in a small role in a Chinese film -- 旗舰 - 巴特尔 (qi jian - ba te er) -- as an American soldier. We traveled down to Zhanjiang, Guangdong -- a navy town. The foreign actors had to do background checks and leave our cameras and mobile phones before we entered the military areas. Which was funny because all the "Chinese" people were allowed to take pics all over the place, and I'm sure

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-1170920151995563042007-03-10T23:35:00.000-08:002007-07-17T01:17:24.198-07:00

I love Hong Kong. It's a foodie paradise. Everything is good. While you might not find the absolute best of any particular dish, you know you're not going to get anything bad. They don't have time for that here. They also have the best waiters here. They don't bother you when you want to be left alone, and they know what you want before you order. Some of the older guys intimidate me --

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-1170920016585945152007-02-18T23:31:00.000-08:002007-07-17T01:20:02.240-07:00

I love the sound of cicadas. I remember my first trip to Asia many years ago, mid-summer in Kyoto, Japan. I was a typical first-timer, taking pics of everything in sight. But one day I was hiking in a rural mountain area, and the sound of cicadas in the trees was so mesmerizing, I shut my camera and bought a cheap tape recorder. For the rest of the trip I recorded sounds instead of

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-1170920120883520142007-02-07T23:34:00.001-08:002007-07-17T01:33:24.289-07:00

The subtitle is "Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines" but the real goal is a mildly macho food travel show, not shock value. We like Mr. Bourdain -- he's funny, idiosyncratic, and opinionated. But why is he whining like a wussy when he has to eat bird's nest soup, natto, or mountain potato? We've eaten all these things in our home country, America, and we didn't freak out about it, even

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-1170920087983915002007-02-07T23:34:00.000-08:002007-07-28T03:29:12.503-07:00

After another legendary party night at my current favorite bar / live music club 4 Live, I got pulled into late-night eats with my drunken friends. We ended up meeting another group at some OK hot pot place in Hongqiao. I have no idea where. It was 4am and we were all drunk. Good idea to eat a bit to soak up the beer before bed. About 15 people were at the table, and I had no idea who was

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-1169536039403504452007-01-22T22:52:00.000-08:002007-07-17T01:38:11.631-07:00

We were approached by a globe-trotting freelance videographer working with Current TV (Al Gore's new TV network in the USA) who wanted to film and interview the Weird Meat Experience. We took the guy out for the live drunken shrimp at Shanghai Ren Jia -- only to find out they'd taken it off the menu (at this particular location -- it's still at the others). So we promised the following night

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-1168785432452777172007-01-14T05:42:00.000-08:002007-07-17T01:40:16.175-07:00

The recent earthquake in Taiwan has made the internet slow and logging into blogger difficult from Asia, so we apologize for the delay in updates... I was in Hong Kong recently, to visit my friend PaPeRo. PaPeRo is a robot made by NEC. I was asked to perform (as a DJ) at NEC's booth at the ITU, a massive technology expo. My little friend PaPeRo does cool stuff like talk in 7 languages,

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-1141281962641932932006-12-13T23:58:00.000-08:002008-05-04T04:54:32.592-07:00

(or ... 10 Restaurants in Shanghai That Don't Suck) WeirdMeat received a lot of feedback about our public disapproval of Shanghai cuisine. Some good, some bad, but no one (as of this writing) has offered any solution or suggestion that there is something good about Shanghai cuisine. Maybe we're right? Seems like they even admit it. We've challenged many a Shanghai friend to find us a decent

Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13106431.post-1149476712344943442006-11-17T07:43:00.000-08:002007-07-23T01:20:12.551-07:00

For Thanksgiving. My mother has always been a superb cook. She was a health food fanatic when I was a kid, so I grew up eating excellent homemade 100% whole grain bread, honey instead of sugar, whole milk, and regrettably, carob cakes instead of chocolate. (I've since converted her to a complete chocolate snob, like myself, more on that in a later post. Let me just say, if it's less than 70%,

Michaelnoreply@blogger.com