ATW – You just can’t avoid the fish head

While the previous visit to Maoming had me looking for a convenient place to throw-up several times, I have avoided the odd food dishes for most of this visit. I say this now with only one night left to go, and all bets are off for that last night, but the food has been much more palatable for my whitey tastes. One night I had eel soup (aka snake fish) and it was one of my favorites. It was seasoned, and looked, like gumbo and was supposedly a local dish. We frequented a placed named Mao Jia, and it was explained to me that the food is in the Hunan style, which is were good ole' Chairman Mao called home. It, for me, was clearly the best restaurant in town. The interior reminded me of Californian restaurants - exposed brick and odd, unrelated photographic artwork. The food was excellent, though my final meal, turned interesting. I had held out against the fish head platter suggestions on several previous nights, but when the seven or so dinner plates arrived, one was fish head. It was covered in spices and didn't really look much like a fish head, and fortunately I picked some of the meat on the edge and then filled up on the other six offerings. I only squirmed a little when they turned over the head and started eating all the insides. I had finished eating by that point. One of the other dishes was 'knee joint'. Or at least that's what I'm calling it. It was the lower portion of a busted leg bone, with no meat and just a big ball of fat and cartilage stuck on the end. You were also given a straw to suck out the marrow. I tried one and then moved on, but these were extremely popular among my fellow diners. All other dishes were fairly normal and rather spicy, especially the rabbit meat on skewers.
I also tried KFC for a couple of quick lunches. It was rather uninteresting but fast, and the food mostly tasted like US fast food, just much smaller portions. I think there were chicken feet on the menu, but I never tried them, but I did try the Chinese version of cole slaw. I'm not sure what was in it, no cabbage for sure, but just gobs of a mayonnaise-like substance. I couldn't force it down if I had to.