Dog Meat- It's not cruelty!

First up, I really want to apologise for not updating this blog for so long, it's been more than a month since I touch this blog! I'm sorry that there will be no photos for the time being until I manage to upload it through someone else's computer.



I would want to say that unlike many other people, I do not at the very least believe that eating dog meat is anywhere considered animal cruelty. Think about it, we eat chicken, duck, pork. To us, they may be merely animals cultivated in farms to be on our dinner table. However, other countries keep them as animals. So? Does it mean that just because we keep dogs as domesticated animals, eating them is wrong? Just like there are chicken cultivated as our dinner, the same goes to dogs, so there is absolutely no meaning to go all teary eyes about it.



Anyway, it was I myself who asked my buddy's parent to bring me to go somewhere to try dog meat. Actually, there is a whole list of rather exotic food that I am interested to try- and balut is definition at the top of my list. So they brought me to a korean restaurant to have my first taste of dog meat!



To get myself ready, first come the 2 appetisers: Kimchi and Dried Tofu. They aren't really anything extraordinary and I am never fan of kimchi so I would rather not elaborate on them.



Next is surprisingly, probably my favourite dish in my whole China trip (Actually, it may not seem such a surprise as we have almost the same breakfast, lunch and dinner thanks to the school's systematic- not to mention boring, planning.)! It was simply called Cold Noodle. Actually, the real version of it was to have crushed ice to be poured on the noodle. As they ran out of ice, we have to make do with iced water.



It was nothing fanciful, really. All it was was a bowl of noodle with soup, accompanied by cucumber slices, beef slices, half a hard-boiled egg and corriander (Which I took out as I have close to zero tolerance to that soap-tasting vegetable.). Maybe it was due to the ice cold soup, but the noodle was super springy, the bite is so good that you can tell which strand of noodle you are biting at distinctly. The soup was also pretty good with a hint of sour, but it was really the noodle that made this dish stand out.



Finally, the dog meat's here. To taste the very flavour of dog meat, I decided to order the Dog Meat Mixed Plate, which is thick dog meat that has been simply boiled and sliced. To accompany it, there was a bowl of chili which I would say taste really similar to the chili used for duck rice, just without the ikan bilis.



The dog meat look like a piece of overcooked pork with pig trotter's skin and fats and the taste is pretty much like how I just described. The meat was really dry inside and there is a gelatinized layer on the outside, making it a little chewy on the outside.



According to my buddy's parents, dog meat is commonly eaten in the Northern part of China not as delicacy but as a way to keep warmth. How true is that I do not really know as the temperature in the area I went to is around 20 degree celcius so it was rather unncessary to keep warm.



Would I eat dog meat again? Sure, but I wouldn't spend the effort to go all the way to China just for it. It's just a 'heatier' version of pork in my opinion.