Fish Eyes

Kindy and I ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant (in Shanghai).

1st. I never heard or saw Kindy order. I was watching the waitress scribble frantically as he was reading the menu, but figured she was practicing or something-- he was certainly not saying or discernibly pointing to what he wanted to eat. Obviously I’m wrong as we got food -- but still it seems cryptic to me.

And he ordered 22 plates of food. Like tapas. They started with 5 and as we ate more appeared.

And 50% was new to me. scallop concoctions (served in the big shell), exotic sashimi, large sardines, egg soup, a good kim chi... Fish heads

So we’re half way through when the first fish head comes. The first one was tuna head. It comes with two pieces, the whole head and then a chunk from the shoulders (fish shoulders?). Kindy advises me to go for the head.

I did with commitment. This whole eating thing is my bag. The stranger it looks the happier I get. The hotter, the mo’ bitter whatever. I love eating food -- challenging food. The fish head wasn’t necessarily this....

But then I got to the eye. Big grin on my face. Was having fun and thinking ahha! my first chinese challenge! Not going to even ask -- going to savor the eye, I think I read it’s a delicacy..... do i pop the whole thing in? or bite it? whole thing! aha--hmm ,round, slippery rolled around on tongue, it popped, salty, thicker than I thought, woah meaty, viscous, mouth is very full, need to chew, it’s a two swallower.

I still can’t figure out what the chalky white thing in the center was, but I’ve never eaten anything quite like tuna eye.

A couple of plates later we got salmon head. I asked Kindy to take it. When he got to the end all that was left was the eye....

i pointed chop stick; said saving this for last eh? He laughed; said you eat eye? i never have, ok ok i’ll try.

He had a nibble and spit it out.
I assume because he’s taiwanese and not chinese he must not know....

C