Kill Pig Dish 杀猪菜 in Haerbin 哈尔滨
After a short nap after a tiring afternoon of exploring, I head out of the hostel to find a place to eat. I haven’t really had a chance to try really local stuff and it seems that it is a bit difficult to find. I was walking back and forth along the restaurant row when I noticed a signboard advertising one of the stuff my friend recommended to me. It wasn’t really the most appetizing of names either. Anyway, since I was already here I decided to just try it. The restaurant was already quite busy that time of the night and I was lucky to find a place to sit. Like most Chinese establishments, it was warm and comfortable inside. I decided to try one of the northeast’s specialties, “Sha Zhu Cai” “Kill Pig Dish” 杀猪菜.
Large Wok of Kill Pig Dish 杀猪菜
The scary sounding name can be taken quite literally, they killed a pig to make this dish. The dish is primarily composed of pig parts which aren’t normally consumed. There were normal meat in the stew but most of the stuff was made of “blood sausage” 血肠. I think that is solidified pig blood poured into intestines. It is then chopped into cylindrical shapes and dumped in the stew. I’m no stranger to pig blood and this one was quite something. There was a lot of pig blood than I can handle and I didn’t manage to finish the entire dish. Contrary to what my friend told me, it wasn’t really very tasty. There was salted vegetables to add taste to the stew but nothing really special about it. I guess it was more about the experience of trying it. Come to think of it, I don’t think I saw anyone eating it. Maybe this was another one of those “tourist food”.
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