Jason, out of a perverse need to try everything on the menu at least once, notices that there is a dish we haven't tried yet. I'm not sure of the exact name, but it was a boring name--something like Capsicum Beef.
The dish was FAR from boring. In fact, it's been the source of something of a culinary mystery for Jason, Rachel, myself, and now tommy and mrs. tommy. Actually, to be accurate the REAL source of the mystery was the accompanying condiment (which was also apparently a marinade for the dish as well).
Describing it afterwards, I explained it to tommy, via the Messenger, as follows. Please excuse my worse than usual command of the english language...
{the owner of China 46} Cecil's English is good, but this is something that he mis-describes in English--which is part of the problem.
The dish was called something like Capsicum Beef, or something like that. It was big strips of beef in a big soupy bowl full of vegetables, in a brown-looking sauce, and with enough ginger to kill a horse.
But the Ginger (as strong as it is) is not the secret ingredient. In fact, I usually don't like that much ginger, but it works because it's combined with this substance that (once again) Cecil describes as Capsicum... but it's NOT that yellow oil he showed us {on a previous visit}. And it's not hot Chili Oil. Capsicum seems to be his generic term for anything he makes from any kind of peppercorn. This is a blackish concoction in a little dish that he also revealed was already marinated into the meat in lesser amounts. He showed us a bag of the peppercorn it came from, and they are unremarkable looking reddish-black colored peppercorns he referred to as Shaghai Peppercorn--the taste of which he said even many Shangai people find exotic.
The taste is the weirdest thing we've had in a long time. It's almost the reverse of conventional spicyness. There is a tingle on your lips, and in your mouth... but it's NOT the same slightly painful tingle you get from red peppers. It's like that feeling you get when you leave some slightly acidic fruit juice on your outer lip for too long, but stronger and still not quite an equivalent (it's not acidic either... I'm just trying to describe the feeling). Then, the oddest thing, is that when you take a sip of water afterwards, this oil of whatever is still in your mouth and the water tastes really really weird (Rachel thinks the water tastes lemony... but I just thought "weird").
I haven't even come close in describing this. It's one of the strongest tastes I've ever had (and I know at least part of that is coming from the Ginger as well, but still it was strong) and I can't describe the damned thing.
tommy and the mrs. have had this now, and by his reaction they seemed just as pleased, but mystified, as the rest of us (except Rachel Perlow, who hated it) were. I still think my description to tommy was somewhat inadaquate, but after eating it tommy thinks that my description isn't that far off.
Anyone have any idea what the heck we are dealing with?
