No Guts No Glory

     When it comes to trying new food I've never been one to hesitate.  My motto is I'll try anything twice and I usually stick to it.  That's because I had a bad first experience with oysters but later discovered that I like them.  Visiting China has obviously been a tremendous platform to try new foods.  I can name over a dozen new foods that I've tried from our local wet market alone.  However, there has been one item in the market that has eluded the breadth of my courage, UNTIL NOW.  Where I get my breakfast burrito, dan bing, egg pancake...whatever you want to call it they also serve a breakfast item that you drink.  It is a soy bean tofu that is only partially curdled so there is some semi-solid tofu floating in soy milk.  They spoon it into a cup making sure you get just the right amount of solid and then add savory flavors.  My best guess after watching stuff from mystery bottles get squirted and spooned in is a little soy sauce,  a spoonful of MSG, some green onions, a little pickled vegetable slaw, a couple shakes of another sauce and if you'd like, some chili oil.  Now you understand why it took me a little while to step up to bat.

     I'm proud to say that Tuesday I consumed and enjoyed my first...hmmm....I have no idea what this called.  Most people would say they were nervous on their wedding day but that minuscule amount of nerves was nothing compared to the feeling in my stomach before I sent the first gulp of this down the chute.  I should note here that Bri often points out that I take large "taste bites" but I truly feel that you have to give the item a fair chance.  If your going to try it, try it.  Don't prance around it.

     The verdict in my humble opinion was that it was quite appetizing and I finished it before class started as my second breakfast.  Bri and I like to ask each other what we'd do to get another taste of a dish.  Some dishes I'd slap my mother to eat again (It's in San Francisco) and others I'd only punch my brother-in-law to taste again.  On the real ranking system, I'll be ordering this again, encouraging others to try it when they visit, long from now when we're in the US raising kids I'll still remember it, but I won't miss it enough to try and recreate it.  You can see I'm not a fan of 1-10 scales.

     So that's the verdict but what did it taste like?  It was like a warm, savory, runny jell-o textured protein shake.  If you like chinese food you'd be fine but if you are the type of person that dislikes food because of texture you should probably sit this one out.  It kept me full 4 hours until lunch and what more can you ask out of 1.5 yuan...25 cents.

     So thats that, and now I'm pondering other things I see from the street and I've been leery to try.  I'm wondering what else I'm still missing out on because its just a bit too daunting to put down the hatch.
Matt