‘HOW MANY BONES ARE IN CHICKEN FEET?’

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The answer is, a lot.  In fact once you discount the bones, cartilage and skin the only thing that’s left is the sauce they were cooked in.  In some countries, notably China, they are widely consumed.

After I ordered my pot of jasmine tea and fish in sweet and sour sauce at Prosperous, I ventured to the steam table for some dim sum.  I thought I would treat myself to three of those small dishes.  I chose one dish that contained two small spring roll wrapped items with something colorful on top showing through the translucent wrapper.  They turned out to be filled with pork.  The colorful thing on top was a piece of imitation crab leg.

 

The second item was a traditional steamed bun filled with a mixture that resembled a mild pork barbecue.  The third one was a mystery.  The small dish was full of pieces of meat in a lot of dark rich looking sauce.  I chose it because of the eye appeal of the sauce.  It turned out to be chicken feet.  Being a ‘foodie trouper’ I ate all but one of them.  I spent most of my time using my tongue to separate small bones and bits of cartilage from the skin and pushing them out to my lips so I could deposit them with my fingers on a dish.  It’s not a dainty dish to eat.  At least the sauce was tasty.

The sweet and sour fish was a hit.  A Cantonese mildly flavored sweet and sour sauce with the obligatory pieces of red and green pepper and tomato plus some small slivers of cucumber came with battered deep fried mild pieces of fish.  There was a surprising amount of fish in the dish.   I have been taken in tow since day one by the same waiter.  He now knows to bring me Jasmine tea and today as I was leaving asked me if I were coming tomorrow.  I've made another new restaurant ‘friend’.

On the way back to the hotel I felt like a little fruit for dessert.  My fruit vendor is only at his location at night and my larder is down to a single orange.  I crossed Jalan Macalister to a restaurant that had a fruit cart in front.  This cart instead of selling whole fruits sold them already cut up in small clear cellophane bags.  Each bag comes with a longish thick toothpick for spearing the pieces of fruit.  I chose watermelon and paid.  The vendor pointed to something I didn't know and said ‘very good’.  It turned out to be jackfruit.

I took my watermelon and stood in a shady spot and polished it off.   I still felt a little peckish and thought, hey why not.  If I can try chicken feet.  Why not jackfruit?

After I bought a small cellophane bag of it he pointed off to the side to the jackfruit he was carving to put in the bags.  This is a blimp-sized fruit.  Wait till you see a picture.  Only a small portion is edible.  It is yellow in color similar to a mango and is sheathed in a lot of non edible fiber.  The fruit itself is tough and chewy.  It is almost as chewy as a dried apricot.  The flavor, well I’m having a tough time describing the flavor.  The aroma is slightly peppery.  The taste changes in my mouth as I chew on a piece.  I get slightly 'citrusy', then it changes to a flavor not unlike a piece of citrus flavored hard candy.  There is a hint of melon in there as well as mango. I am thinking complex citrus flavors.  The flavor lingers in my mouth long after I have eaten it.  I guess we’ll just have to sample one when I get back.

After Prosperus then what?  Over the next few days I’m going to concentrate on the tried and true Penang hawker offerings that many websites tout.   Take, for example,  CNN Travel’s article about Asia’s 10 greatest Street Food Cities.  (http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/eat/asia-street-food-cities-612721)

They lead off with Penang and list the 10 most popular street hawker foods in their opinion.  I've eaten four of them.  My goal will be to knock off the other six over the next few days and then continue my forays into hawker food and open air restaurants using other similar lists as my guide.

I did go to Tokyo Seafood for dinner last night, picked out a nice fresh red snapper, and went to my table to await my meal.  It came on a large tray.  The fish had been split and cooked in a liquid which appeared to be mostly soy sauce and water.  A few shreds of ginger topped the fish along with some mushroom slices and pieces of fresh tomato.  The fish had been cooked to the semi mush stage.  In a few words, it was not only uninteresting but also cost what I had paid for a dinner at Mama’s.  However, I've been here for a week and it’s the first lackluster meal I have had. 

Another note of interest, for virtually all of my meals I have been the only ‘foreigner’ in the restaurant or at the hawker stall.  I can think of only two times in my 14 plus meals that I saw faces like mine, and then it was only one couple.

Finally, the jackfruit has piqued my interest in fruits we don’t normally see in the US.  On my way back to the hotel I saw a small street corner restaurant with an awning and several tables and chairs.  His only item for sale was durian.  He was splitting them and taking them to customers seated at his tables.  I could see those luscious custard like lobes nestled in the fruit hull.  It has been over a decade since I have tasted the fruit that is both loved and reviled in the orient, partly because of its pungent aroma.  I vividly recall walking by hotels in China and seeing plaques posted on the outside saying ‘NO DURIAN’.

Well, today jackfruit, tomorrow durian, and who only knows what for the day after that.