Fish or Squirrel?

[khiemtran]

Back at Qin Yuan Chun, the menu has a very interesting item at #11.



Well, the English might not be so interesting, but the Chinese characters are.


松鼠黄鱼

The first character,松, means "pine" as in the type of tree; the second,鼠, means "mouse". Together, they mean "squirrel".

The third character,鼠, means "yellow" and the last means "fish". Put together, we have "yellow fish" and so, presumably, "yellow croaker".

So, what do we get when we order "Squirrel yellow fish"?

Happily, it's something like this:



It turns out that "squirrel" here refers to the method of cooking. The fish is deboned and then turned inside out and then the flesh is scored so that it puffs up when deep-fried. The result is supposed to resemble a squirrel's fur.



And the taste? Well, a lot better than your average squirrel. The fish flesh was excellent, but the sauce was bit too overstated for my taste. Still, there were hardly any bones to deal with and it was great fun picking the little morsels of soft meat off the "squirrel's" back.

Comments

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I wonder who had the idea to turn a fish inside out...

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I don't know, but I have seen at similar presentation at a House of Sundanese Food restaurant in Malaysia. A whole fish was served deep fried as though leaping off the plate. I didn't notice at the time whether the flesh had been turned inside out, but I think now it might have been.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

And the taste? Well, a lot better than your average squirrel.

Are you speaking from experience here?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Actually, no. At least not knowingly. I have eaten burgers in the UK though, so who knows?

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of an old joke from the time of the BSE scare: Two cows in a field; one says to the other "So, what do you think of this mad cow disease thing?" The other says, "Don't ask me, I'm a squirrel."

What's clever about it is the ambiguity: Is it the second cow that's mad, thinking it's a squirrel, or the first cow, thinking it's talking to a cow when it's really talking to a squirrel?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, I like that one too.

In the same vein, I keep expecting to see the headline about the BSE crisis: Phew! Turns out it was horse all along!