Monday, February 25, 2013.
Stormy Weather. Chinese New Year At Jung's Golden Dragon.
A downpour overnight forced the Long Branch out of its bed, through the woods, and over the one-outlet road to the Cool Water Ranch. More rain was coming. This did not bode well for the Eat Club dinner tonight. I checked the road at the last moment before I had to leave for the South Shore. It was still too deeply covered to get out, and the direction of flow said that the water was still rising.
I did the radio show from the ranch. By the end of it, the rain had ceased and the flood gone down. Mary Ann and I left for the South Shore immediately, and made it to Jung's Golden Dragon about an hour late for our dinner.
Everybody on the list showed up, and perhaps a few extra. A table had to be extended to fit MA and me in. It also put us next to Jim Letten. For all his fame as a corruption-buster for the feds in recent years--and the rough patch he's had to go through lately--he's an amusing dining companion full of stories. We laughed all night.
We ate all night, too. What we had missed by showing up late were the soup, the jellyfish salad, the combination of spicy beef tongue and tripe, and the cold, salty duck. Jung (she goes by one name) caught us up with those dishes, all of which were a) full of excellent, intriguing flavors and 2) not as offputting as the unusual ingredients seemed. The only dish that did not develop a following was the duck, whose overload of bones and chilly temperature were the kind of thing I think you might have to grow up with to appreciate.
The next round of platters brought Peking duck (outstanding), a whole steamed fish (true sea bass, testing our ability to handle the removal of bones, but very good), and some enormous Maine lobsters with ginger. A platter of sweet and pungent pork tenderloin was in circulation, too. Mary Ann said it was the best dish of the night. By the time the platter arrived in front of me, it was empty. The don't call us the Eat Club for nothing.
And then, yet another round of major dishes. Salt and pepper prawns were enormous whole shrimp. Jung told me that the way to eat it was to chew on the head to get all the fat. I did, to the extent that my not-very-good teeth could handle that task. The main body of the shrimp lent itself to my usual technique of eating shrimp shells-on.
The most exotic item came on a platter of sauteed scallops, shrimp, giant calamari, and sea cucumber. The latter was a new food for me, and I imagine everyone else, too. Sea cucumbers are primitive animals unrelated to anything you might know. Their meat was a medium gray. The texture was like that of the scallops, but softer. My research suggested that it would have a strongly seafoody flavor, but that was not the case. The morsels were second in mildness only to the squid. The baby bok chow and straw mushrooms balanced out the seafood beautifully.
That left the award for most striking flavor of the dinner to a liquor. Letten told me to knock it back from the little sake cup in which it was served. I don't knock anything back before tasting it. The sip revealed a shockingly alcoholic potion, like grappa. I asked to see the bottle. The label was in Chinese, but the import tag indicated 56 percent alcohol. That's 112 proof. I stood up and told the guests to extinguish all open flames.
This proved to be an unusually entertaining evening. Most of the diners were adventuresome people, or they wouldn't have been there. Even Mary Ann had to admit that she had a ball. Jung said she wanted to do it again next year, or perhaps even sooner. I'm up for that.
To browse through all of the Dining Diaries since 2008, go here.
