Frog, donkey, and "pig treasures."

So we got taken out to lunch a couple more times recently and ate some interesting things.  I've been having connectivity issues, so I haven't been able to get to my blog to post about it in a timely way.  I'll try to remember all the things we ate and describe them for you.

The first restaurant was a Sichuan-style restaurant, so we had to be careful to get not-spicy dishes.  My kids don't do spicy. 

We didn't order this, but I had never seen "pig treasures" on a menu before.  Looking at them closely, I'm confident that they're exactly what you think they are.

This is the waiter pouring hot water into our teacups with the coolest, longest watering-can style thing I've ever seen.  It was fun to watch.  I wonder how much they had to practice to get it right without spilling.

This is our waiter cooking the egg dish right at the table.  Tasty!

I confess, I hardly remember this dish.  Not that it wasn't good.  It was vegetables and tasty and I liked it.  But I don't remember it well enough to describe it very well.  A lesson to me about blogging promptly.  My descriptions in this post are going to be lackluster at best.  But at least there are pictures!

This is the best sweet and sour fried fish I've ever had. I will go back to this restaurant to order this particular dish.  It was fabulous.

Head shot.  (ha ha ha)

This was pork, I was told, and spicy.  But tasty.  Mark ate most of them because it was a little hotter than I like.

This fish was spicy, too, but it was REALLY GOOD.  Gideon actually loved it.  For a little while.  I think the heat got to him after a bit.  But the flavor was fantastic.  I may have it again.  Mark had leftovers of it the next day and they were almost too hot for him, though, so it's definitely a finish-in-one-sitting dish for people who don't glory in spicy.

The eggs after they were cooked.

This is donkey meat.  It was really good.  It had the texture of beef and a flavor halfway between pork and beef.  It didn't taste gamey and woodsy like venison; it tasted domesticated, for lack of a better word.  I'll never watch Shrek the same way again.

This was the "grains basket."  Corn, sweet potatoes (purple ones), white potatoes, edamame and peanuts, all steamed.  I really enjoyed the steamed peanuts.  They were a little like boiled peanuts from the US South but less slimy and salty.

This dish was "bones."  I'm not sure if it was beef or pork.  I had a little.  It was good.  A little spicy.  I don't really get the thing they have around here with bones and cartilage, though.  They're on the menu a lot.

These were corn cakes (I think).  Fried, a little sweet, and really really good.  Everyone liked them.  They were a hit.

This is the frog.  It didn't taste like chicken to me.  The texture was similar, but the flavor was much milder.  It's probably the mildest meat I've ever tasted.  It was yummy.  I just wish they didn't simply chop up the frog so that I have to pick out the bones.  Call me a lazy American, but I don't like chomping into the bones by accident.

This was our "flower tea."  You can see some flowers and some I think rosehips.  It was lovely.  My kids, of course, didn't like it at first, but they learned that when they "stirred" it with the lid enough it started tasting sweet.  There may or may not have been some sort of sweetener in the bottom with the leaves and flower parts.  I'm really not sure.

And this is the spit on the stairs on the way out.  Lovely.

There's another restaurant we went to and pictures from it to share, so I'll try to get that up soon.  And we've been to Papa John's, which was fun and interesting, and a few other places.  I'll try to piece together those blog posts soon.  Oh, and I've come up with a pretty darn good fried rice recipe that I could share so you can all eat delicious fried rice.  Next time I make it I'll try to take pictures and post about it.  :)