Since I’m staying at home sick, I decided to do a bit of cleaning around the room and on the computer. I got distracted by pictures (like always) and then was reminded by Andy’s picture of brain about my brain soup. Yep, brain soup. Slurp that up.
There’s not a lot of information available online for Zhong Cheng Hao (at least in English, I can’t be arsed to bother searching this up in Chinese) but this small restaurant is tucked away on a side street off from the main street of the Shilin Night Market.
I don’t remember how we ended up back here, we were just walking around looking for some food after having arrived back in Taiwan from a 15 day multi city trip through Shanghai, Hong Kong, Boracay (and one night in Manila that started out sketchy but ended up being saved by Jame’s dad). A trip that I wish I had taken more care of with documenting and later cataloging the food we ate more carefully. Could have been the daily drinking that hindered me though. Hm…nah.
I do know that when I saw this bag of brains outside..I wanted to have some of it, no matter how it was prepared. Stir fry, boiled, steamed, soup, deep fried. Whatever. Let me eat it.
Sitting beside this big bag of brains was a lady just nonchalantly cleaning them of the blood vessels.
The menu was easy to comprehend, pictures AND English! Pig liver/brain/stomach soup for 40 NTD, while pig heart soup is 50 NTD and pig kidney soup is 60 NTD. The exchange rate is about 30NTD for 1CAD.
Can’t remember why but James opted not to order anything. Victor ordered himself a bowl of pig heart soup. Looking at it, it really isn’t easily identified as heart..looks more like a piece of beef or something.
I of course, got the brain soup. Just some clear soup with some choy and ginger slivers. Maybe about half a brain, or one hemisphere’s worth of brain in the bowl.
Look a video! Yeaaa..just watch it, I describe the texture of brain and we discuss how a pigs heart should look like.
I realize that these posts may not hold a lot of value to people here in Vancouver, but for me personally it’s a good way to preserve my memories not just pictorially but through words. To actually put down in text what my thoughts and feelings of this experience is very therapeutic in a way. Maybe one day you’ll go to Shilin and stumble into the same restaurant and think “Hey I read that on 604 Foodtography!”
Comment if you know what prions are!
