CHINESE FOOD

okay so I have been here almost two weeks and finally went out for authentic Chinese food last night.  I went with The Bensfields from church (Oh and did I mention how super awesome and amazing they are??  Well they are!!).  They work at the Embasssy so I went with them and some other people that they work with.  They all go out to eat often and refer to themselves as the "food hooligans".  They were a really fun bunch and super friendly so I felt bad I was feeling under the weather and not very conversational. We were supposed to go to a super hip and cool American style pizza place called the Kro's Nest.  But they weren't open when we got there so we went next door to a Chinese place that looked like a hole in the wall but it was really good.  We ordered a bunch of dishes and I can't remember what any of them were called in Chinese but I did have cashew chicken and kung pao chicken which were both actually pretty much the same as what you would get in the states.  We had some pot sticker things with pork and some with beef and I really liked the eggplant cooked in whatever it was because it tasted really sweet like a plantane.  We had a plate of meatballs and I will admit I couldn't identify exactly what it was.  I was told not to ask but to just eat it if I liked it.  My favorite was a beef dish that had pieces cooked in a thick sauce of some kind and then you wrapped the pieces with cabbage into a piece of flat square bread but it didn't look like bread so I'm not sure what it was made out of.  It was yummy though.  

So at some Chinese restaurants they try to translate the dishes into English and the translations get mixed up and are pretty funny.  They had things on the menu like "exploding chicken balls", "beef with black fungus", and our favorite from last night, "the flaming cowboy".  We were pretty fascinated with the name "flaming cowboy" so we ordered it.  The girl brought out  a dish with food wrapped in aluminum and there was salt poured on top and all around.  The salt had been soaked in alcohol so she lit it on fire and we sat there and watched it burn out.  Then we weren't really sure what to do with it so she came back and opened the foil and it had a peppered beef  in it that was really good.  It kind of reminded us all of a very yummy hobo dinner!

Well hopefully I can try some more Chinese food soon. There is a traditional food court in the mall where my school is located and they have some things there I want to try.  I suck at chopsticks.  I need to invest in silverware I can take with me in my purse.