StreetMeat galore (this post is in memory of Andrew D'Auria's love for street food when he was a resident of NYC)

New pics of a night on the town w/ 3 classmates on a quest for simple, common food and I have added 3 new photos in the Laura's BBQ album too: http://picasaweb.google.com/jdorrian2334

So last night I ventured to "Ghost Street" in the quest for quality and non-illness causing street food. Here is one explanation for the nickname: http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_curiosity/2006-07/25/content_84043.htm

Another explanation was that years and years ago there were large gates all around the city and they were each assigned a specific function. For example, whenever the Army went out to battle it had to leave through a certain gate. Whenever it returned from a battle it had to re-enter the city through a certain gate. So apparently there was a large gate right next to this neighborhood we went to that functioned as the gate where dead people were carted through. I don't think it mattered whether you died of natural causes at the age of 98, were runover by a rickshaw, or were killed in battle... your body was simply removed from the city at this particular location.

So at some point in the past this neighborhood got popular for late night dining on the street and a larger volume of people started showing up to eat than anyone expected. Some clever person claimed that the spirits from all the nearby cemetaries and graveyards were coming to eat at "Ghost Street"... and there you have it.

Raynaldo, Xavier, and Xiuxi (sp?) took the subway and walked around this area for awhile. We were sort of disappointed to see that it was more a massive stretch of casual restaurants than actual street food vendors, but that's OK. We got there sometime between 9 and 10pm and probably didn't get back home until around 1230am-ish. We were told that Ghost Street doesn't get hopping until after 2am, but we all had stuff to do the next morning so we didn't feel like staying out that late.

The cuisine in the restaurant:

• Chicken sternum - Seasoned wonderfully but the texture was terrible. There is no reason to eat something that was that difficult to chew


• Sheep/Pork tendons - Pretty good, but I forget which animal it was from. Decent taste and texture. A keeper in my book, all things considered, and a million times better than the beef tendons I tried my first week here.


• Kidney (from some animal) - not the greatest. It wasn't awful, but I really was not a big fan. It looked a tad gross and I just wasn't that into it. I let Xiuxi finish my skewer.


• Mini-lobsters - They were exactly like the crawfish you get in Louisiana. Very tasty, just extremely messy to eat. We were given plastic gloves when these suckers came to the table. Quite good though.

The cuisine in the hutong we went to after the restaurant because we were still hungry:

• A plate of green beans almost identical to edamame you would get in a sushi restaurant. Delicious, and they go great with beer.


• Heaps of boiled peanuts. Quite delicious.


• Pig's blood - I passed.


• Chicken hearts - good


• Chicken wings - just like the good old US of A

The hutong meal was more relaxing, more laid back, and of course ridiculously cheap for 4 grown men to eat until satisfaction. See the album for brief description of what may or may not be on this plate.