Chinese Foot Fetish

A Whole New Kind Of Toe Jam!

I've had this unexplained craving for Chinese food lately.  Can't exactly explain why.

Fortunately, there's a good supply of restaurants to feed me.  While not up to the quality level of the ones down in Houston's Chinatown on the SW side, I'm reasonably sure that they're not dousing everything in MSG syrup or using frozen cat in the Kung Pao.

This is not to say that you can't find some really odd food from time to time...

I've been returning more & more to a place up on Clay Rd. called "Neighbor's Kitchen".  It's a small family-run joint that does the majority of their trade in takeout and delivery, though they do have a lunch buffet and an eat-in dinner menu.

So, I'm sitting there waiting for them to wok up my Beef & String Beans and some Singapore Mei Fun, and I notice that I'm being given the once-over by a little Chinese toddler.  OK, maybe a bit older than toddler, but still just a sprogling.

He's seated at one of the tables, and he's busily slurping on... something.

I take a closer look, and he's grabbing some sort of bird foot off of one plate, rapidly reducing it to a pile of bones, and spitting out the bones on a smaller plate.

It's hard to see if they're duck feet or chicken feet.  There's this thick layer of gelatin stuck to each one, and from the way the gelatin is wiggling, the plate of feet is ice-cold.

The thought of gnawing on chilled gelatinous feet is enough to make me just a bit queasy, but this kid is doubling down, he's got a foot in each fist, and is alternating between them, reducing each one by a toe at a time.  In between bites and slurps, he leans over and "PTOOs" out a little bone onto the smaller plate.

The coup de grace (or glace, I should say) is when he pulls of one final foot, and half a plate's worth of congealed foot goo & sauce comes up with it, and the kid attacks it like a fruit roll-up.

*Urp*   I think I'm having a burger tonight...