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 we'd get some real juicy bits at the Uygar restaurant on Shanxi Nan Lu (Shanxi South Road) at Yanan Lu. Well, our luck was just plain out this week, and we turned up looking foolish and without footage. All the cool stuff was off the menu that night. No penis. No lamb's head. No camel hoof. Nothing fun, exciting, adventurous or disgusting. At least not worth filming.
Raw Sheep's Heart with bell peppersThey did, however, have appetizers of "raw sheep's heart" and "raw horse meat". Now, these do sound fun and adventurous, but they turned out to be "cured," not necessarily "raw". So the horse meat was like Italian ham, and the raw sheep's heart was like slices of liver pate. Not exciting on camera. Both were quite delicious, and we ordered seconds of each. The horse meat tasted quite familiar, and if someone told me it was a darker, richer Canadian bacon ham, I'd believe them. Could be good on a pizza or sandwich. Incidentally, I've had horse meat before, in Japan, and in south Italy, and it's a popular dish in the south of France... (check out this guy's rant about
horse meat.)
The Uigars live primarily in western China, mostly Xinjiang province. They're Muslim -- no pork on the menu -- and their most well-known menu items are the flat round fresh baked breads (resemble thick pizza crusts) and skewered lamb meat kebabs (yang rou chan). You can find Xinjiang food in most cities around China. In fact, it's trendy now for young adults and college students to have Xinjiang food, and you'll always see portable lamb skewer guys standing outside popular nightclubs -- as drunks like to have a hangover-cure munchie before heading home.
Horse meatThese street vendors do an amazing trick -- they're not legal, so when the cops are coming, they grab their BBQ tray, fold it up, and make a run for it. It's all so fast and efficient, like a magic trick. Often they just run around the block real quick and set up again like nothing happened, and your kebab is still cooking and almost ready to eat. Should be an olympic sport!
Anyway, at this Uigar restaurant, they do a nightly song and dance routine on a stage, and try to embarrass customers by turning them into unwilling volunteers. Only once have I allowed myself to be embarrassed like this -- it was Halloween and I was dressed as a Chinese army general, feeling festive with several bottles of tasty Xinjiang Black Beer in my belly.
So the sheep's heart and horse ham were quite innocuous -- pleasant and familiar to the palate and sight of any Westerner, as long as they don't know what it is. We applaud anyone who doesn't waste good meat, whether it's weird or not. But these items tasted really good and familiar, and fulfilled our need for protein.
* I've used several spellings Uighur, Uygar and Uigar, because, well, they're both used often, regardless of what's currently proper.Labels: heart, horse, shanghai, sheep, xinjiang
