Deer Placenta
Shanghai, China
There's a hub of fancy-pants clubs and restaurants surrounding the intersection of Dongping Road and YueYang Road in Shanghai. French bistros and bakeries, German breweries, wine shops, upscale Chinese and Japanese, and even an old stalwart, the Eager Beaver Bar (English teacher watering hole). Between that and Club Mao (Euro-trash disco), is a fine little Chinese restaurant called Mingmen Private Kitchens. Mingmen specializes in deer. Most famously, deer placenta.
What is placenta?
The sac-shaped organ that attaches the embryo or fetus to the uterus during pregnancy in most mammals. Blood flows between mother and fetus through the placenta, supplying oxygen and nutrients to the fetus and carrying away fetal waste products. The placenta is expelled after birth. - Dictionary.com
Some humans eat human placenta, it's supposed to be good for you. Tom Cruise is rumored to be one of these humans. Don't you like eating "sac-shaped" things?
So, at Mingmen restaurant, you can order deer placenta in a soup.
Deer placenta soup. (click on pic for larger view)
There's also mushrooms, flowers, black chicken, and deer tendon in the broth. Nice soup broth. The placenta bits where elastic but not rubbery. The portion is small, especially considering you're paying 158 RMB (over 20 USD) for a small bowl.
Deer placenta is said to be good for -- these guys are good at marketing! -- male sexual performance, kidneys, women's skin, people of all ages, and in all seasons. Hmmm. How can you continue life without it? No worries, you can order deer placenta in pills! These pills even list "ass glue" in the ingredients. Good for flatulence, we suppose?
Deer placenta, and other parts ... on the menu at Mingmen. Unfortunately, they were sold out of deer brains on this visit.
Deer placenta is also said to be chemically close to human placenta, and is now considered, according to this hawker, the "premier" source of placenta.
Deer steak, cubed, and served with black pepper sauce. Pretty good stuff, tasted like a stronger, gamier beef.
Oh, check back again soon so I can tell you about the "deer dick-in-a-box" and the deer antler candy I had on Christmas day. Poor Rudolph...
Mingmen Private Kitchens (open to the public)
42 Yueyang Lu, near Dongping Lu, Shanghai
021-6466-2626
P.S. How about some Frog Ovaries for Dessert?
Labels: aphrodisiac, deer, placenta, shanghai, TCM, traditional chinese medicine
posted by Michael @ 6:47 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I'm reading this as I'm watching a vacuous, preening celebrity chef on the Food Network channel describe in delicate tones the sweet flavor of "baked bone marrow on toast with ox tail marmalade", and oddly enough I find myself getting hungry.
I can do without the placenta and ass glue (I don't even what to know what that is, terrified that people voluntarily ingest it), but that deer meat plate is actually looking quite tempting.
I wonder: Do they extract the placenta when they butcher the deer, or do they simply peel it off a newborn fawn and send it to the restaurant? Even without this knowledge, though, I found the post very entertaining and enlightening.
Enjoying the blog a lot! Next time you're in the Philippines, try these: Kwek Kwek, Isaw, dinuguan. I know you've had pork blood soup before somewhere, but you should try dinuguan. =) keep it coming!
It's very nutritious and it doesn't pay to waste good food. However, it sounds a bit difficult to harvest in any decent quantity. I'm not sure it's really worth the money to eat with any sort of regularity but it's neat that you've tried it.
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