Last night, I ventured with my friend Jon on the 7 train out all the way out to Flushing for dinner with The Gastronauts. They were celebrating two years of socializing and adventurous eating at A Fan Ti, one of the group’s “greatest hits” from the past two years. I knew what was on the menu since it had been circulated before hand:
An Evening at
A Fan Ti
Vegetables and Starters
Sauteed Strring Beans [sic]
Sauteed String Melon
Seaweed with fresh garlic
Parsley with Peper [sic]
Preserved Egg with Bean Cord [sic]
GizzardNose to Tail
Lamb Brain
Lamb heat Meat [sic]
Lamb Eye in Brown Sauce
Salteed Hunch [sic]
Spicy Shredded Lamb Stomach
Grilled Lamb Kidneys
Lamb Lag with Bean Sauce [sic]
Testicle with Hot Pepper SauceDrinks
Koo Lai
Jon and I showed up slightly late after walking past the restaurant not noticing it. We thought it might have been our subconscious trying to tell us something but if it was, we ignored it and found the small, modest restaurant which simply had “B.B.Q.” on the awning.
I sat down to one of two tables with at least 15 people sitting at each one. The crowd was lively with a good mix of women and men all talking about the courses they had just tried, anticipating the courses to come and sucking down bottles of Koo Lai, or Coors Light. My kind of crowd.
Appetizers
The dinner, served family style, followed the menu pretty closely with some exceptions. We caught up on the first courses of String Beans, Seaweed with Lamb Head Meat, Tofu with Preserved Egg, Shredded Lamb Tripe (String Melon) and Sauteed Spinach. All of these first courses were served chilled or room temperature, light on the palette and refreshing. The preserved egg, which I assumed might be nasty, only carried a really salty flavor above anything else.
Then it got serious.
Main Course
First up was the Lamb Brains served grilled with a brown “sauce for the brains”. There was a plate of 3-4 brains which are about the size of your fist. As would be my technique for the evening, I portioned a couple of healthy bites. The flavor was evident of lamb but also a bit gamey. The texture could be compared to runny scrambled eggs without the viscous, liquid component…if that makes sense. I had another bite, just to make sure that this was not an appealing course. After that third bite, this was a sign that I could trust my instincts in this case.
Next was the Lamb Eyeballs, braised and served in brown sauce. This was the dish I was having the most anxiety about, worried that I would have an entire eyeball in my mouth and have to chew through it with a surprise burst of flavor that I did not want to comprehend. But I think everyone at the table had the same feelings as I did since we portioned the eyeballs into halves and separated the optic nerve (which Jon would later consume and enjoy). Surprisingly, the eyeball was good assuming you like to eat the bits of fat from an appropriate piece of meat. The flavor and texture were equivalent to that but in some subtle way better. However, I treated it like a piece of pork belly which is to limit myself to a very small piece. I had a feeling this meal was going to be pretty high in cholesterol and I did not want to push it.
Okay, I’d never order eyeballs again if I can help it. But it was a pleasant surprise not to be grossed out by the one item on the menu I was most fearful of. Perhaps this is the parable parents have been looking for to convince their children to try new things at the dinner table.
Don’t Wash Your Food Down
After most of our table had concurred on the Lamb Eyeball culinary experience, we moved on to a rapid fire succession of Lamb Kidneys and Testicles, each served two ways; grilled and you guessed it, in braised in brown sauce. The grilled kidneys were heavily spiced - almost blackened - which helped me to eat it slowly and savor the flavor. Not too bad. My least favorite dish of the evening was the braised kidneys, which I didn’t like from the moment it hit my chopsticks. I made the mistake of trying to wash the kidneys down with beer, which due to their tough texture, washed all of the otherwise delicious brown sauce away and left only the kidney in my mouth. It was then I realized I had no business in an eating contest on a reality television game show. But I held my composure and swallowed. Uggh.
There isn’t much to say about the braised and grilled Lamb testicles other than it was fun to eat them listening to the comments from everyone at the table. The flavor had the subtle pungent lamb flavor I had been tasting all night along with a texture that sits somewhere close to but not quite as tender as swordfish. At least the braised testicles were served spicy with peanuts which not only added to the flavor but also to the irony of it all.
Three final dishes, braised chicken gizzards, spicy shredded lamb stomach and braised lamb tongue were, in retrospect, a great way to end the meal only because my appetite was fatigued from…trying so many other new things. I have had fried gizzards before, so I knew what to expect…the toughest, chewiest protein I have ever had. The spicy shredded lamb stomach was equivalent to the shredded “melon” dish, basically a tripe Kimchi. The lamb tongue ended up being the favorite of mine for the evening and for everyone sitting around me. The texture was better than what I remember of beef tongue and the flavor finally found equilibrium with the brown garlic sauce that had accompanied so many of the other dishes.
No Dessert Course
After the meal, we stuck around the restaurant to socialize, discuss the election returns (and our disappointment from those returns), and to talk about previous Gastronaut dinners. As extreme as this meal was, everyone seemed pleased that it was not nearly as challenging as their insect dinner, which was documented and reported on by NPR.
Reflecting on the evening, I can say this: I have a better appreciation for the food we eat regularly in the West. What I had to eat last night is probably considered by many cultures a delicacy, either because it’s part of their tradition to not waste animals killed for food or because it is what’s affordable. So I applaud the Gastronauts for expanding my culinary experiences because I don’t know many others who are, no pun intended, gluttons for this type of punishment. I definitely had a lot of fun with the group and I look forward to dining with them again in the future.
But I am thankful I wasn’t there for the insects.
I was just listening to Beck - Rental Car