Chinese Barbecue
On my last post, that I did from my lovely phone, I said we were at my mom’s. We were celebrating her birthday. She had a barbecue at her house, a Chinese barbecue.
What in the world is a Chinese barbecue, you ask? Well, that’s what I call it. It’s a regular barbecue EXCEPT Chinese style. You get the regular grilled chicken, grilled ribs, and potato salad. It was sort of strange with carrot and ham. Those aren’t regular potato salad ingredients are they? Then there was another potato salad with dragon eyes. Oh wait. That’s the Chinese name. I mean lychee. Ok back to what I was saying. Regular barbecue but then you add some weird stuff that isn’t usually at regular barbecues. Like…

Grilled squid.

Common self heal fruit spike drink next to the Pepsi. It seriously says that right on the bottle. I forgot to try it. Probably tasted self healy.

Green bean soup with stinky grass. I kid you not. That is the literal translation. I tried to have someone, anyone, in my family to translate that into English. But no one knew the herb name, they just called it stinky grass. I should have taken a picture. My mom grows stinky grass in her yard. And when I say soup. It’s a dessert soup. Like Chinese red bean soup. So, when I say green bean soup it’s not green beans. It’s actually probably mung beans. Not like I really know, I googled it.

And of course tea. Doesn’t everyone have tea, in fancy little Chinese teapots, at barbecues?
And then of course since it was a birthday, we had cake. But not regular cake. Chinese cake, of course. From a Chinese bakery. Have you ever had Chinese cake? It’s usually fruitier. And not as sweet. Yum yum.

And because I didn’t know where to stick this last picture or how to finish this post coherently, here’s Nathan riding a radio flyer. A teeny one.





















Looks delicious! Intrigued by the stinky grass so I looked it up, this site says it’s rue
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2010/08/herbs-rue-ruta-in-green-bean-sweet-soup.html
Which seems a little odd, as rue is a medicinal herb that I thought you had to be careful with. Among other things it can be used as an abortificant. Although there probably are a number of herbs and spices that could be dangerous in large quantities.
This website says stinky grass is cilantro
http://www.ihatecilantro.com/stories.php?page=19
Oh! And all these years of trying to teach myself Japanese might be finally sinking in, as I recognized what would be the Kanji for summer and grass
I just finished looking at these pictures in flickr and I was looking for a place to say how fascinated I was! I love these photos! I want more!
YOu made me laugh
But, yes, the pictures are lovely, stinky grass and all. You know what, it is really clever to have mung bean/green bean soup after or with a bbq because this soup helps to cool down the system. Perfect for a ‘heaty’ bbq
Aw Nathan is chubbing up! So cute. … your stinky grass story made me chuckle XD