After a torturous disgrace of a dinner last night, today I was marched at gunpoint to another restaurant to have lunch with one of last night's companions and two other young women I know, but rarely see.
One of the women ordered and we ate family style.
This restaurant is odd. It thinks it's serving Western food, which it certainly isn't, but unlike most such places, it still manages to mostly serve tasty, agreeable grub. Four of us ate:
Grilled oysters with minced garlic and chilli
One bite salmon and crab roe in a crisp pastry shell - almost but not like Filo/Phyllo.
Squid and scallops in a thin tomato flavoured sauce. Strange but good.
Beef with pretty veg. As ever, the beef was overcooked.
Rice with clams, mussels and shrimp. Chilli, green olives and black olives. With a spiral squirt of Kewpie mayo.
These are revolting. Baked oysters with plastic "cheese".
Fruit salad with more Kewpie Mayo
Another bite sized attempt. Potato chips/crisps hide the mystery ingredient. It rests on a purée of purple sweet potato. The mystery centre turns out to be a lump of overcooked, gristly, inedible pork. Not dish of the day.
I have no idea what this is. I didn't go there. It looked like de-constructed cream puffs with blueberries and mango.
Another cut of overcooked beef. Tasty, but needed some pink. The Chinese don't do pink beef. And red scares them. With three types of mushrooms.
Spicy sea snails. My favourite.
So, some albeit odd successes and a couple of failures.
Tonight, for dinner, I'm going to curl up at home with a nice cheese and misanthropy sandwich and a beer or five and get away from the indignity of having to eat nice food with lovely women friends. It's been a stressful couple of days.
