How many times has this happened to you? You go into your favorite Chinese restaurant, you order a big plate of stir-fried Siberian tiger, and something just doesn't seem to taste right. Maybe this tiger is just a little off. Maybe the chef doesn't really know the right way to cook a tiger. Whatever the case, it's enough to ruin a perfectly good meal.
But did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, you weren't even being served a tiger? You will now, you savage.
REUTERS - The cat is out of the bag at a restaurant in northeast China that had been serving donkey meat spiked with tiger urine in pricey dishes advertised as endangered Siberian tigers.
"After inspection, the owner confessed that the so-called tiger meat was donkey meat that had been dressed with tiger urine to give the dish a 'special' flavor," the newspaper said.
Yeah, special. Nothing smells quite as special as cat piss, and I'd have to imagine that smell doesn't get any more pleasant when the cat weighs more than a quarter of a ton.
You know a recipe must be pretty disgusting when donkey meat isn't the ingredient that makes you say, "eiw."
The article concludes with one of the best sentences ever written by a journalist:
The report did not explain where the tiger urine had come from or how it was collected.
Some things truly are better left to the imagination.
On only a slightly related note, Tiersa and I had a delicious California-influenced Vietnamese dinner last night at 19 Market in downtown San Jose. Both the sea bass and the prawns were delicious, and neither tasted of donkey laced with cat pee.
Brandon Guertner thinks donkeys are funny but does not like to eat them. Mr. Guertner hasn't seen a donkey in a long time. Brandon wishes there were more donkeys in Silicon Valley.
Posted by: Brandon Guertner | December 14, 2005 at 01:54 PM