Growing up in a Chinese home and being sent to school with some sort of funk in my lunch thermos that would permeate the lunch room did not help my popularity in elementary school. Last night’s dinner of braised pork belly with pickled mustard greens over rice would be the only thing on my mind leading up to lunch time. Nowhere to be found in my He-Man lunchbox were there any fucks packed by my mom to give about the kids who thought it was gross; frozen chicken nuggets or peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat and other latch-key loveless lunches. Trying to explain what my lunch was, I fought fodder for ridicule and ultimately groomed my passion for Chinese cuisine and subsequent appreciation.
Are there things that you can eat and eat and eat and never get sick of? For me it’s dumplings. Like some people joke and believe that they have separate stomach for the things they love to eat, I love dumplings. I truly believe that I really do have a separate stomach to house and digest the copious amounts of dumplings that I can eat that would frighten the common person, make old people lock their doors and children cry. Where in my body this stomach is located, I’m unsure, but I have a feeling it’s next to the stomach for pho and below the one for chips.
This dish is one of more unique dishes you can find at a Dim Sum house – beef offal 牛雜 – Comprised of all the best parts of the cow…!