this post is filed under Cuisine - Chinese, Location - Beijing

Time for a Beijing monster update! This is another meal with Mike and his family at 张生记 (Zhang Sheng Ji), a Shanghainese restaurant.

smoked duck

some veggie I don't know how to translate

pig ear, flavored pork, roasted duck

pan fried pork bun

duck & ham soup

beef with green peppers

plain stir fried baby shrimp

stir fried rice cake (nian gao)

red pepper fish head

stinky STINKY tofu

Excellent meal all around. I dunno what the veggie is called but it was great. The pan fried pork buns were delicious... the best sheng jian bao I think i've had. Crisp on the bottom, good filling. The duck soup is supposedly the signature of the place and was also excellent... Tons of flavor to the broth. The shrimp were awesome. Very light a refreshing. Nian gao was one of the best I've had as well - the texture was perfect; no mushiness at all. Now, to the stinky tofu. I just don't get it. It's so stinky. It doesn't taste particularly good. Why not just eat non-stinky tofu that can be just as good or better? Ah, whatever.

The stinky tofu is an acquired taste, like strong cheese.

I used to hate it as a kid. But now I love it. I don't know at which point in time i started craving it, but it certainly happened.

So.....keep eating it...if you can stand it! haha maybe someday you'll wake up wanting it.

posted by Morgan Chang on July 3, 2006 08:40 AM

Morgan - I must agree; stinky tofu is pretty much the prototypical example of an acquired taste. And it's a taste I don't particularly plan on acquiring... ;P

posted by Arthur on July 16, 2006 05:41 AM