Last night Mrs. Monty and I spent another night out and about at the seaside of QiDong. This time we went out for 小龙虾 or Xiao (small) Long (dragon) Xia (shrimp) which is an awesome name for crawfish in my humble opinion. I didn’t take a photo (sorry, we were too anxious to dig in and once we did our hands were in too much of a mess). Thus begun over an hours endeavor to consume 2.5Kg (about five and half pounds) of these mini-dragons — sounds much more than it is considering 80% of the thing is head and claws, but nevertheless it was still a feast. We opted for 香辣 (Xiang La) flavor, which was “flavorfully spicy” in all the right ways. By the end of the evening my fingers were burning from the combination of shelling all the critters and the spiced oil coating my hands. We also had a few skewers of BBQ, but nothing compared to the place we went previously, so I think I’d reserve this particular restaurant to crawfish marathons as the ‘lil dragons were super fresh, very clean, and amazingly affordable (2.5Kg for less than 20 US dollars).
Aside from the food, it was the perfect “street” ambience as we sat outside among a bunch of other families with just enough drama to be entertaining. Given that our hands were busy, and our mouths were full, it was the perfect diversion. The BBQ part of the kitchen was also in view from our table and the gruff boss/chef was quite a character. I got a sense that it was much better eating there than working there, but I guess that is pretty much true of any food establishment.
At the end of the night, after fishing out the very last of the creatures from the red eddies of spicy broth, Mrs. Monty was thankful that I took the time for our not so little dragon feast. It’s something that I don’t do too often as its so much work for each little morsel. But in China it seems that the more difficult something is to eat, the more delicious it becomes. Perhaps not such a bad analogy for the way life works?
Be well,
Monty
Monty’s Blahg 