Sharing my Ideas, Views and Opinions !

Laxative is a type of drugs to induce bowel movements or to simulate the evacuation of faeces (stool in layman’s term). In other words it is taken to treat constipation.

Sometimes, you can find natural laxative in your everyday consumption. You will find it more frequent if you visit unhygienic restaurants. If you are not aware, the frequency increases if you are inChina.

Mom once told me, “Dirty Eat, Dirty Fat” (this is a direct translation from Hokkiens means eat anything that is clean or dirty and you will still survive). So, without hesitation, I hop into this restaurant.

This is one of the many seafood restaurants inDalian. Dalian is another province in China which is famous with seafood such as abalone, sea cucumber, scallops etc. So, don’t be surprise if you see many seafood restaurants over here.

Is this one of the famous one over here? I don’t think so although the waitresses keep claiming that they are the best! This kind of hype is very common due to the local competition or I called it “Just another marketing gimmick”.

I did not order seafood because I do not want to get slaughter for no reason. I ordered seaweed with potatoes and cabbage with rice noodles instead. Although I tried to avoid seafood, it seems like every dishes over here taste slightly fishy.

Generally, the food is not very impressive. So, why I write about it? Well, I just like to give you a feel about what are the local food looks like here.

Wait a minute, when I say the food is not very impressive, I am not 100% honest. When I said I did not order seafood, I am not 100% honest too. I did order seafood… An Abalone Rice..

With only about RMB 35 (approx. RM 17), You get the whole abalone + broccoli + rice, quite a good deal and taste scrumptiously delicious. Is it genuine abalone? It looks like real to me, but who cares, as long as it is edible and cheap, right?

Now, comes the crust of the whole post, did I get stomachache or diarrhea after that? The answer is NO! This is because of my long years of practicing my stomach. Generally my stomach is tallied for harsh environment . What about yours?

Dalian Seafood Restaurant

GPS: (you did not miss anything.. if you cannot find this restaurant )

Have you ever wonder what is “i” on iPhone, iTouch, iPad etc? Is “i” refers to me as in the speaker/writer, intelligent, idiot, indigenous or whatever that is related to “i”? Let me think.. it must be intelligent because I feel slight intelligent when I use iPhone.

Eh.. but sometime, I feel slightly idiot wor. Don’t ask me why because I also wonder why. One thing for sure is the word “i” make me feel belonging and a little cooler. hehe..

“i” become such a trend nowadays that anything related to “i” signify modern, young, trendy. iTea is one of it but iTea is not a gadget. It is a modern dessert shop, a snowflakes alike shop.

This shop caught my attention when I see a very long queue of customer, the longer the better when comes to desserts. I went to genuine Snowflakes during Bloggers’ Gathering at Pavillion KL and ate shaved ice in Mill Wheel Ice Cafe but this shop is slightly above all.

What I love most about this place is the interior design. It is just a simple shop with white as the prime color. It gives me a calm feeling and white in China is very rare as it is hard to maintain.

The simplicity and well maintain corner prove that this marketing strategy works. Order and pay for your drinks when you enter the shop, < 5 mins later, the dessert is served and you can dine in clinically clean environment. To protect the ‘secret ingredient’, the dessert will be prepared in a non-visible corner. So, I can’t judge everything is 100% clean.

If you that remember snowflakes is good, this is 3 – 4 times better. From the photos, you might noticed that mango and red beans are just common but what the photos didn’t show is the texture of the ice. Instead of calling it flakes, they called it slush.

Rather than rough and big chunk of ice, slush texture improves the dessert quality quite significantly. Try it once and I am sure you will amaze with the sensation. To me, I would give 9.8/10 as I never tried such a nice mango slush or red bean slush before.

Are these the only 2 desserts that are good? Of course not, this shop sells a broad variety of dessert and all are at reasonable price ranging from RMB 15 – 30. It is a perfect place to grab a quick recharge!

iTea

普照街96号, 辽宁省‎ 大连市, 中国

Street 96, Liaoning Road, Dalian, China

GPS: 38.920455,121.638737

Broccoli with Mushrooms

Ingredients

340 g Broccoli (Cut small)

5 White button mushrooms (Small slices)

1 Onion (Thin slices)

1 tbsp Light soy sauce

½ tbsp Oyster sauce

1 tsp TikkoSS’s Secret Ingredient

¼ cup Warm water

1 tsp Cornflour (Mix with 3 tbsp of water)

Method

1. Boil broccoli in 1 L of water. Add 1 tbsp of oil and 1 tsp of salt into the water. (Notes: Adding oil into water will maintain the green of the vegetables and adding salt will add flavor to the vegetables) Drain the water and set aside.

2. Heat wok with 3 tbsp of oil. Fry onion until soft and fragrant.

3. Add mushrooms, follow with broccoli.

4. Add light soy sauce, oyster sauce, TikkoSS’s Secret Ingredient and warm water. Simmer the mixture for 5 minutes.

5. Finally, add mixture of cornflour and ready to be served.

When I write eXotic, please don’t confuse it with eRotic as both actually carry totally different meaning. As you know, my blog is suitable for all walks of life including those who are underage

Underage might know more than me? Let’s not try to go there. Exotic means strangely unusual while erotic, please use your dictionary if you are really “that” innocent.

Strangely unusual can be very relative to many. Western claimed chicken claw as exotic food but Chinese treat it as a treasure. Photos above are just for illustration purposes because hawker stalls is never a strangely unusual place to me but the products are.

Selling skewer meats or having plastic insects’ décor on stalls does not fit into exotic category. So what are the exotic foods that I am trying to share here then?

Skewered meatballs, sea urchin, pigeon, stinky beancurd, squid or odd shape crabs? These are really exotic in my eyes. Probably not all of it but stinky beancurd is definitely in the list and the odd shape crabs too.

Do not ask me if the food here is fresh? Frankly, I have no clue. It looks like all foods are spontaneously prepared but why bother? You are going to get stomachache for sure as well. Not because the food unhygienic but because your stomach is not tailored for it.

Those are just appetizers. The real crust of “really” exotic (no more relative) food journey is about to begin. I procrastinated if I really want to include all these photos of insects here as it might drive away all my readers especially I posted a lot about food before.

Catching fly with chopstick and eat it? Nothing special about that but over here, you get skewered scorpions, bugs, beetles, silkworms, centipede, crickets, grasshopper and many more. Ewww…

If you are thinking of having seafood, think again! All are not just an ordinary seafood but a lot of other weird stuffs. Starfish, sea snakes, serpent alike fish, mantis prawns, sea horse, some amphibians and many more..

If by any chance you see cockroaches or whatever moving things, don’t kill it.. eat it! Maybe you can sandwich them and put some seasoning/flavoring sauce to improve the taste of it. OR to save time, just eat it raw if you dare!

If that is not fear factor enough for you, try this, all internal organs starting from testicles, penis, kidneys, heart, stomach etc. I am not sure about you but it turned me straight off and felt like puking even when I just glanced at the photos.

I might be adventurous but not to that extend/desperate yet. I do not mind to spend more on food but not this kind of food.

But But.. I managed to catch a daring foreigner who tried to excruciate himself by trying out the deep fried scorpions. To him, it tastes like chicken in taste and peanuts in texture.

Still I am not up to that challenge YET and never will.

Wang Fu Jing Street

Beijing,China

GPS: 39.910543, 116.411079