Jetlagged, unshowered and unshaven after my first flight to China, I shuffled in to a restaurant along with two Chinese friends in the southern city of Nanning.
“What do you like to eat?” they asked. It was, this being Southern China, a loaded question.
As my taxi driver two days earlier in Las Vegas had pointed out, Southern China is famous for eating anything that walks, swims, flies or crawls on the ground.
I’d already laid out my ground rules for Nanning dining: No dog. No cat. So I shrugged and said “Whatever you want.”
“Spicy?”
“Sure.” Spicy might clear some of the time-zone-induced fog from my brain. Roll the dice. Bring it on. Let’s see what is in store.
“It” turned out to be a big platter of chili-slathered duck heads. They were split lengthwise, bills intact. One appeared to be staring at me, except the eye had been removed, leaving a little cartoonish “X.”
I watched my friends for etiquette — chopsticks from the platter to the plate, then pick it up by the bill. I was being watched. I took a bite. It was like two of my favorite foods combined, buffalo wings and duck, which is to say that beneath the fiery sauce there was a lot of bone to work around to get to the tender duck meat and crispy skin.
“Good,” I said, gesturing with my half-eaten duck head.
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