Duck Heads

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 lot of experience running around town checking out the real deal local food, so I agreed to meet him for lunch on Shouning Lu, which is known for small divey restaurants and street food vendors.



First we found a tiny place with a small display of oysters, clams, mussels, and scallops. These were already opened and left out on a tray sitting on the sidewalk in the sun (or lack there of, it's Shanghai after all). I found this disconcerting -- the raw meat was collecting dust and pollution and warm, dry air. Then a fellow stopped by on a bicycle and dumped a big bag of muddy mess right on the street in front of us, and hosed it off to reveal large oysters. I ordered one of these and had it placed, open face, right on top of hot coals. They covered it with a huge glop of raw minced garlic mixed with green herbs. This turned out to be reasonably toothsome, but it's not particularly Shanghainese food.



We then found a vendor who served us a deep-fried battered pork chop on top of two deep-fried rice cakes (actually like a 6-inch by 2-inch thick rice noodle). Topped with vinegar, this really reminded us of UK-style fish and chips, except for the absolutely nasty sweet brown gravy they added -- that's the Shanghai way -- I would ask them to hold it next time.



Then we spotted a few curbside woks ready for action. The vendors have a variety of noodles or rice, and a big selection of ingredients and sauces that you can order as you wish. We watched a few others order and knew what to do. I ordered a fried rice, and restrained the chef from adding anything sweet or syrupy, and held the powdered MSG to just a teaspoon. I also encouraged her to add extra chili spice. I could tell the chef was a little annoyed that I was micro-managing her cooking, but it was worth it. The fried rice was palatable, but unlike any I'd had in Shanghai, because I'd more or less put it together myself. The only thing I could not change is the quality of the ingredients, most importantly the cooking oil, which is, I believe, half of what's wrong with Shanghai food.



We also found a man dumping dry corn meal into a machine that pooped out a stream of puffed corn, with a little knife that spun around rapidly to cut the puff stream into little bite-sized nuggets. Tasted like parcel packing foam.



We'd given up on finding anything particularly "weird" on the street when we turned a corner and found a shop specializing in odd duck parts. We ordered a couple whole duck heads. They're just full, cooked, and lightly seasoned heads of duck, which are partially split in the center, so you can crack them open and dig out the inner bits like the brains and cartilage, and uh, whatever else exists inside a duck's head. We didn't get much to munch on inside, but the thin skin covering the head and bill was tasty, even if it required a lot of little nibbling and tearing with our front teeth. There were also duck tongues and webbed feet and other duck parts, but we've had most of the other stuff before. The duck heads, meh, the skin was tasty but a lot of work for very little to chew on. Still, we appreciate that these parts are not going to waste. Here's a few photos of us eating duck heads:

Odd duck parts; duck heads.

Buying duck heads.

Duck tries to escape, head first.

Eat the skin.

Crack the head.

Nanjing Chicken Embryo, Duck Blood, Bull Penis

Nanjing chicken embryo, duck blood, bull penis ... well isn't that a mouthful? Yes, and a delicious one. Last weekend I took the train to Nanjing, just a few hours up river from WeirdMeat's Shanghai headquarters. My good friend Coco introduced me to her good friend Nono, and thanks to Coco, because Nono turned out to be the perfect guide to Nanjing.

Nono took us to Nanjing Da Pai Dang, a very nice, but not too expensive, Nanjing specialty restaurant on the Hunan pedestrian street. It was a food explorer's dream. Literally hundreds of small dishes to choose from, each with real samples to look at instead of having to read the menu. Clean and modern, but classically decorated. We were greeted by kind elderly men in traditional dress, and seated by shy giggling waitresses who went to great lengths to ask me if I needed a fork. They could not believe I, a foreigner, could possibly handle two sticks to eat my food with. I amazed and charmed with my unorthodox but capable chopstick skills.

So here's what we ate! I'd heard about a Nanjing specialty that is similar to the Philippine balut, and the Cambodian duck embryo, but the difference in Nanjing is that they're chicken egg embryos, not ducks.



Nono carefully explained there are two types in Nanjing -- the dead ones, and the live ones. That didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, and I doubt the Supreme Court could handle it either, so I demanded a better translation. The "dead" ones are called "wang ji dan" and apparently they are D.O.A. before they're cooked. The "live" ones are called "huo zhu zi" and they're younger and fresher. The wang jidan are perhaps seasonal, and more difficult to hunt down, so we only got to try the huo zhuzi. They're chicken eggs so they're smaller than the duck embryos I'd had in other countries, and their flavor is more subtle. They are delicious, but not as thrilling as the SouthEast Asian ones. But you use the same salt-pepper-spice mix to flavor them. I had 3 of these. They each had tiny little chicken heads, less than an week old, so no feathers. I'd say about 12% chicken, 88% egg. BTW, what is that hard circle part on the bottom -- future bones? I'm told that Nanjing girls are crazy for them. If Nanjing girls are crazy for weird meat, that's cool with me.



After that we tried the duck blood soup (ya shui tang). This looks and tastes like dark purple-brown jello firm tofu, in a spicy broth. I'd seen something similar in Guangdong (Canton), but I was told that was pig blood. Nono confirmed this, and called Guangdong "the fountainhead of weird meat". Yes, indeed. The duck blood was also very good, full of bloody flavor and soaking up the spicy broth.

We ate all kinds of other good local dishes, and drank the local beer, which of course, was much much better than anything brewed in Shanghai. Before we left, I took another look at the offerings, and found "black bone chicken soup with bull penis (wu ji niu bian tang)." Had to try that one! The black meat silky chicken is a popular health tonic around China, which I've had many times. And in the bowl was a small cut of a bull's penis. It was a soft rubbery little thing that looked like calamari, with little half slices cut into it to make it more pliable and soak up flavor. I believe this was a small, circular cut of the bull's penis.



This penis was soft and tender like a fresh noodle, and captured the flavor of the soup nicely. Speaking of male cows, one of the waiters came up and told me I looked like ... the coach for the Chicago Bulls NBA team. OK. That's a new one.



On my second return, I tried a "quail on a stick". It's a whole quail. On a skewer. I'd had some quail at a French restaurant in Shanghai last week, and I'm finding that quail is my new favorite bird. Dark, gamey meat that goes well with red wine. Anyone know what kind of wine goes well with penis?

Balut: You want 12 day, 16 day, or 18 day?

Cebu, Philippines.

I've done the edible egg embryo before in other countries, but I've always wanted to try it in the Philippines. I first heard of this popular snack from perhaps a National Geographic article on the Philippines, and for years I wondered if I could stomach them. I have several times now.

They're duck embryos, but there was a rumor going around today in Cebu that a vendor had been spotted selling "chicken balut", which my acquaintences agreed was a silly idea and just didn't taste as good as the duck ones. I can't be sure; we didn't see him tonight.



As I said before, when I ate them in Cambodia, I actually quite liked them and it's probably my favorite tasting weird meat. I haven't tried them side-by-side, of course, but the Philippine balut resembled the Cambodian ones in every respect I can recall.

First you choose between 12 day, 16 day, and 18 day. The 12 day ones are just hard-boiled eggs with no embryonic development. The 16 day ones are further along but concensus was that these are just inferior to the king of balut -- exactly 18 days after being laid.



After you choose what kind you want, the vendor grabs them piping hot from the basket and passes you a little stool, salt, and a vinegar-onion sauce. You hold the hot egg and flick carefully but forcefully at the top of it with your middle finger. It cracks a bit and you gently remove a small hole from the top, so you can sip the savory broth before removing the whole shell. I agree that the 18-day one is better than the younger ones. You might come across some small chunkies but it's usually just eaten all the way through, in about 3 mouthful bites. You can see feathers, head, wings, and skeleton forming, but it's basically an extra-chewy easter egg. The flavor is savory and delicious; the texture satisfying. Match with a light pilsner beer.



If you're in Cebu City looking for the balut, I got mine from a street vendor at Fuente Osmena circle. He was really helpful and knowledgable, and proud of his product. The cool thing about traveling in the Philippines is that most everyone speaks English, so don't be shy to ask questions.
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Addition: Found more info on balut. The eggs are from the "itik duck" which is native to the Philippines. Itik mother ducks are lazy so humans have to incubate them after the mother ignores them. That explains a lot. More info here.