Nan Luogu Xiang, once dominated by coffee shops, small restaurants, bars and boutique stores, is now making a name for itself as Beijing’s leading snack street.

Custard

Wen Yu Nailao, one of the earliest snack shops on the street, specializes in a sweet custard based on a recipe dating back to the Qing dynasty. The small shop is only open on for a few hours daily, from 10:30am untill their supply is sold out, usually around 2:30pm. No worries, nearby Ju’er Renjia also makes a decent custard that resembles Wenyu’s.

Churros

47 Nanluoguxiang (next door to Wen Yu Nailao)

Delicious fried pastry drizzled with melted chocolate, sells for RMB15/five pieces; RMB20 with a dollop of soft vanilla ice cream. Could make some improvement on the melted chocolate, and it would be great if they served them with powdered cinnamon sugar.

Halal yogurt

Manufactured in Qinghai province, this yogurt sells for RMB8 for a 180g cup, which is a little steep compared to the old-fashioned Beijing yogurt in a ceramic bottle available in neighborhood grocery stores and at newspaper stands. Qinghai Lake brand yogurt, said to actually come from Qinghai in China’s far northwest, comes in several flavors, including sweet, neutral, and original, which has a thick consistency and a strong dairy flavor.

Waffles and Crepes (next to Halal yogurt)

Sells for RMB10 with a spread of Nutella or jam and an option of ice cream. I only tried their waffle and a little disappointing for two reasons: 1. mediocre batter; 2. meager portion (the waffle is of thin kind). If I were to choose between waffle and jianbing, I would go for the latter without doubt.

Ju’er Renjia 菊儿人家

63 Xiao Ju’er Hutong, Nanluoguxiang

Opens 10am-10pm Tel 6400 8117

南锣鼓巷小菊儿胡同63号

Ju’er Renjia is a little eatery that sprang out of Ms. Han’s cozy little house just down Xiao Ju’er Hutong, which cuts into Nan Luogu Xiang. The moment I stepped into the homey restaurant, which just has a couple of tables, I felt right at home as I was greeted by the beaming Ms Han.

The modest restaurant offers only one set meal for RMB20, a tasty lurou fan 卤肉饭, or rice with an aromatic ground pork topping accompanied by a braised aromatic egg. On the side is a serving of mixed pickled vegetables and a clear egg drop soup.

This is one of the best home-style lurou dishes I’ve ever had, because it has just the right saltiness, it’s MSG-free, and it’s not oily–this is genuinely honest and attentive cooking. Ms. Han, a retired worker, says she got the basic recipe from a Taiwanese friend, and then spent four months experimenting, finally coming up with a version of lurou that would appeal to Beijing tastes.

The soup is simple, but wait until you try it. This is the kind of soup that Beijing natives call xiapi tang 虾皮汤, in which the flavor of the soup is brought by the tiny dried shrimps, and enhanced with a drop of sesame oil and coriander leaves. And the scrambled eggs in the soup are as silky as bean curd.

Her home brewed red date and dried longan tea and ginger tea, which cost a modest RMB5, are excellent. I love Ms. Han’s delicate way in handling her sugar.

Finally, we tried her milk custard called shuangpi nai, RMB8/bowl which translates into double skin milk, and juxiang nai, RMB10/bowl, both of which taste a lot like imperial custard (gongting nailao), but which she says is a speciality of Shunde in Guangdong.

Although this is a modest and small restaurant, the dining experience–both food and ambience–is a memorable one.

菊儿人家 Ju'er Renjia

Eileen Wen Mooney on the state of Beijing snacks, and her book, Beijing Eats

Beijing-based food writer Eileen Wen Mooney has been sampling Chinese food throughout Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China for the past 25 years. Her book Beijing Eats, published by Immersion Guides, is the ultimate foodie’s companion to Chinese dining in Beijing.

Why is Beijing such a compelling city in which to eat and write about food?

In Beijing, we have cuisines from all different regions of China. For example, there are the restaurants run by the Beijing representative offices of individual provinces and or regions. The majority of them, say 90 percent, are all very authentic.

And what about the more local foods? What was it about Beijing cuisine, in     particular, that inspired you to work on a project like Beijing Eats?

I had read literature, by people like Cui Daiyuan, Liang Shiqiu, Li Qigong, and more, who wrote about Beijing snack food. I could    imagine the kind of stuff that they appreciated so much. But, I wondered, why hadn’t I heard much about Beijing snack foods after living  here for such a long time? I hadn’t heard about Beijing’s specialties. This gave me inspiration, so I started hunting. First of all I went to  Qianmen, and looked for chaogan’r (fried liver), douzhi (fermented bean juice), dalian huoshao (“satchel” potstickers), and other classic  old Beijing snacks. What do they taste like? I wanted to find out. These things are gradually disappearing, too, and I feel sorry about it.  These things represent the culture of Beijing. So this book is one way to publicize and nourish the traditions that we still have to enjoy.

Did you have a chance to taste the special neighborhood foods before the old Qianmen was torn down?

Yes, I had already started my project before the renovation.  In 2004, I started my hunt for Beijing snack foods. And then in 2005, 2006, it was demolished. The laozihao snack vendors around Qianmen closed down their businesses in 2006 and moved to the little hutong in the Houhai area (Jiumen Xiaochi at Xiaoyou Hutong). In that tiny little courtyard place, there are 12 to 15 of them.

Can their regular customers find them there?

They definitely can. The old Beijingers are still missing them. As soon as they reopened one August, people lined up in huge queues. That’s why I think this is exactly the kind of Beijing culture we must promote. Right? But there is no opportunity, no room for them. Mr. Feng once told me that he’s really hoping to retrace the ancient recipes, but the problem is that he’s not supported financially to do so. See, they are already so worried about their own rent, how can they research anything else?

Is there any chance of seeing a snacking revival around Qianmen in the wake of the renovation?

Now Qianmen Street has been renovated, hasn’t it? So these traditional brands are very eager to go back to their original spot. That area, around Qianmen Dajie, was indeed their territory. However, the rent is so high, and no one is speaking up for them. Why not take less rent from them? They are simply doing these little businesses, nothing too profitable. It is not like selling a cup of coffee for RMB 30. A plate of boiled tripe is only 10 right? How can you charge them such high rent? This was initially their territory, how could you drive them away?  I think this is very unreasonable.

What is your take on Qianmen Dajie today, without them?

Qianmen Dajie today is no longer real. It’s all newly built stuff. All of the winding little hutongs, Beijing’s true specialty, are already gone, as if they have been flattened. There is no more specialty to be named. Who would be impressed by a brand new wide road? This is very unfortunate.

Is Beijing snack food an endangered species?

It probably will not become extinct, but the diversity has gradually decreased. Initially there used to be over 300 kinds of Beijing snack foods. Now, there are probably only 60 or 70 left. There are a number of factors for this. First of all, there is a huge population from outside Beijing in this city. The local Beijingers are becoming fewer and fewer. Those from elsewhere in China have different tastes than the Beijingers, and they wouldn’t appreciate the snack food the way the locals do. On the other hand, for various reasons, the Beijingers are often not confident enough to promote their own stuff.

So how can interested people learn more about traditional Beijing snack foods?

It is difficult. If you go to Huguo Si snack shop, you almost wouldn’t know what you want to eat because there are simply too many choices. Maybe some old people or Beijingers like to have “flour tea,” but aside from that the shop also has shao bing, tang huoshao, tang erduo, even “wife’s pancakes” [which are Cantonese], there are many, many choices – too many. I’d imagine that it wasn’t like this in the past, mixing all these things in the same place; it must have been that each shop had its own specialty.

But now they are mixing all the snack foods together, and I have no idea what I want to eat whenever I go there. It drives me crazy. Where I was born, people only made their own specialty. The proprietor would only sell this one thing the whole day, and that’s it. In Indonesia, on Bali island, we have a lot of snack foods. For example, the fried banana. The man would only sell his fried bananas, and nothing else. But you’d always know that it is his fried banana that you want to eat, and you’ll only go to him.

So what would you recommend as an alternative to the Huguo Si-style hodge podge?

Feng Guoming. Their expertise is boiled mutton tripe. The family sells 13 different kinds of boiled tripe, and they explain each of them on a list: what is du ren, du ling, du ban, etc. But they are very unlucky, they have had to move several times. Initially they were at the Dong’an Market. They had a little tripe stall there in the Qing Dynasty. Business was very good. It was so popular that they were often summoned to the palace to make the boiled tripe on the spot for the officials, especially the bannermen, who love baodu. Later it was closed, and then they opened another small stall. But because of the constant construction of new buildings in Beijing, they had to move again. Eventually, they moved to the Liupukeng area, their current spot.

Their boiled tripe is truly tender, not carelessly made like some others. They make their own sesame butter too, not too thin, and with a strong flavor. The shop itself is very clean too. Their food is not expensive either. It is simply common people’s stuff.

What is your favorite restaurant in town?

My favorite Chinese restaurant is Guoyao Xiaoju. I really love this family-run restaurant, because it consistently offers quality food and it’s very inexpensive. They focus on the food and not tricks to keep people coming.

Do you have a favorite food or dish?

Wow, this is a difficult question. I like so many things. For Beijing specialities, I love madoufu, stir-fried mung bean pulp, and shao qiezi, braised eggplant; for Hunan, nongjia xiaochao, stir-fried pork with hot chilies; and for Hakka dishes, caipudan, omelette with salted turnip and stewed bitter melon with fatty pork. These are just a few favorites among many. I am not picky about food, but I do have sharp taste buds.

What is the best thing about your book, Beijing Eats?

The best thing about Beijing Eats is that anyone who reads it can quickly become a Chinese food expert, because it introduces a wide variety of dishes and cuisines. And although it focuses on Chinese restaurants in Beijing, one can use this information anywhere in the world. For example, if you walk into a Hunan restaurant in Changsha, Tokyo, New York, Paris or London, you will know what to order.

Wan Rong (婉容), a Chinese food critic, recently made a brief comment in Modern Weekly about the decline of the taste of eggs in China, saying that if the eggs are bad, the omelette will be bad. She said the reason for the decline is because the living environment of the chickens is filthy, they live in tight spaces and they are improperly fed. As a result, eggs just don’t taste as good as they used to.

I have the same feeling about so many of the foods we are consuming today–quality is obviously declining.

The strawberries being sold in the market are humongous, but they’re tasteless. There’s more liquid than juice, and they lack the tartness and the seductive and luscious lipstick red color of natural strawberries. Tomatoes are so bland that even a good salad dressing doesn’t help to disguise their dullness.

One reader on my blog commented a few months back that she came across green peas that had a strange coloration and that a watermelon she purchased left a tough red coating on a spoon as well in the plastic containers in which the watermelon was stored.

Cui Daiyuan (催袋远), the author of the book Beijing Flavor (京味儿), wrote that the garlic sold today has been zapped with a laser to prevent it from sprouting roots and to give it a longer shelf life. The process, however, destroys the natural flavor of the garlic. Cui writes that for years he has been making pickled garlic brined in vinegar, called laba suan 腊八蒜, and that the garlic he used in the past always turned a greenish color when it was ready. To his disappointment, the garlic no longer turns out the way it used to–it has no flavor.

There is one alternative, and that’s to purchase expensive so-called green and organic foods, which are increasingly available throughout China. The problem is that with the current situation of blatant wrongdoing in the food industry, how can we be sure that this food is really any better?

No matter whether eating at home or dining outside, consumers today have to be on their guard.

There are a few chefs and restauranteurs taking their own steps to guarantee the quality of food.

Take, for example:

Dai Jianjun, the owner of Longjing Caotang (龙井草堂) in Hangzhou, who finds his fresh and seasonal ingredients directly from farmers including free-range chicken, pesticide-free vegetables and traditionally pressed camellia oil.

French Chef Alexander Maier in Lijiang, who commissions farmers to grow food naturally. Green lettuce, tomatoes and strawberries served in his restaurant are tasty.

An American chef at the Park Hyatt in Shanghai, who has brought in heirloom tomato seeds from the United States to be planted in cooperation with local farmers.

Maybe the ultimate solution would be for local farmers to join things like the Model Farm Project, or the Green Cow Organic Farm, located in Shunyi, where food is produced by implementing organic principles provided by Compassion in World Farming.

Michael Pollan’s fascinating account of Joel Salatins, a “grass” farmer who bought 550 acres of badly abused farmland and turned it into a pastoral farmland by treating the soil with compost, where Salatins says that “the animals do most of the work.”

Here is the summary of the whole organic ideal in the beginning of An Agricultural Testament by Sir Albert Howard (as quoted by Michael Pollan):

Mother earth never attempts to farm without live stock; she always raises mixed crops; great pains are taken to preserve the soil and to prevent erosion; the mixed vegetable and animal wastes are converted into humus; there is no waste; the process of growth and the processes of decay balance one another; the greatest care is taken to store the rainfall; both plants and animals are left to protect themselves against disease.

There is no shortcut for producing genuinely good food. As Sir Albert urged, it’s time for farmers to go back to nature.

But during this period of breakneck economic growth-at-any-cost, it may be unrealistic to expect farmers in China to move in this direction. Things may get much worse before they begin to get better.

凉拌豆腐丝 liángbàn dòufu sī

1 bundle beancurd thread (if you buy the package one, there are two bundles in the vacuum sealed package): cut the beancurd thread into 4cm or 5cm

half stem big scallion (white part only), thin slices

green chillies or bird’s eye chillis, thin slices (optional)

roasted peanuts, crushed for garnishing

Dressing:

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 tablespoon sesame oil

liangban doufu si

Beancurd, better known as tofu, is an indispensable ingredient in the Chinese culinary world.   There are numerous types of tofu as well as countless ways to prepare it – tossed in dressing as a cold dish, deep-fried and laced with sweet and sour sauce, stir-fried with meat and veggies, simmered in aromatic soy sauce, or stippled with spice and ground meat awashed in peanut oil as in Pockmarked Chen beancurd, so named because it resembles its creator.

Pockmarked Chen Beancurd (麻婆豆腐 mápó dòufu )

Ingredients:

. 1 block of beancurd, soft beancurd

. 4 spring onions, cut into rings

. 150g minced pork

. 2 1/2 tablespoons chili bean paste (la douban jiang 辣豆瓣酱）

. 1/2 tablespoon black fermented beans

1 tablespoon garlic (2 cloves)

. 2 teaspoons ground chillies (optional)

. 1 cup stock

. 1 teaspoon white sugar

.  2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 3 tablespoons of cold water

. 1/2 teaspoon ground roasted Sichuan peppercorn (huajiao 花椒）

Methods:

1. Cut the beancurd into 2cm cubes and set aside. Slice the spring onion into rings.

2. Heat 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil over a high flame until smoking. Add the minced pork and stir-fry until it turns a little brown, but not dry. Push meat on the side of the wok.

Turn the heat down to medium, add the garlic, black fermented beans and chilli bean paste and stir-fry for a few seconds until the oil is a rich red color. Stir-fry for a minute until they are both fragrant.

Add the stock, and sugar and place beancurd in the middle of the wok, let simmer till the liquid reduced to half the original amount,. add the cornstarch mixture which turns the liquid into a thick sauce consistency. Add the spring onions and gently stir in, then transfer everything into a serving dish and sprinkle with ground Sichuan peppercorn.

Restaurants open and close rapidly in the highly competitive restaurant business in Beijing.

Here’s a list of recent changes:

Agua, Fez Bar and Shiromatsu at 23 Chi’enmen or best known as Legation Quarter closed early January 2010.

Alexander Creek，called Ding Xi Yuan (鼎溪园) in Chinese, closed late last year. On December 30, 2009  Xiang Ji Xiang（香记香) opened on the same spot, serving a variety of Cantonese rice casseroles (煲仔饭 baozhai fan) that cost around RMB25.  Telephone: 6552 5296.

Caribou (驯鹿) on Qianliang Hutong closed Sept. 2009.

Yue Yuan Teahouse  — Relax Living Bar

8 Guanghua Lu, Bldg. B, G/F, Guanghua Daxia Tel: 6581 6486

悦园茶餐厅 朝阳区 光华路8号光华大厦B座1楼

How did I miss such an authentic and reasonably priced restaurant right in my neighborhood for such a long time? Now, I know exactly where to go for a good roasted pork or roasted goose.

Our meal was opened with two refreshing cold dishes, including red-meat turnip pickles (腌制萝卜), fruity Chinese yam prepared with plums (话梅山药), and an exciting “bitter chrysanthemum” sprouts (凉拌苦菊苗), which was bathed in a distinctive concoction of condiments, where the flavor of Sichuan pepper stands out among the tangy taste of the vinegar and soy sauce, both of which are seductive and addictive.

You can’t go wrong with chef Zhang Weiwei’s (张卫卫) shaowei platter (烧味双拼), which consists of crisp red-brownish skin roasted goose (烧鹅) with tasty meat and tender barbecued pork (叉烧) with a good marble of fat, perfect sweetness and a hint of wine. Golden deep-fried chicken (杏香鸡) is memorably delicious. I am marking this as a defaulted place to eat shaola (one of the few good places in town).

Ganchao niuhe (干炒牛河), rice noodles with beef and bean sprout, a popular Cantonese noodle, is well executed.  A Qiang, the soup expert hailed from Guangzhou, is hired to be in charge of soup-making, either double boiling it into clear soup or simmering it over the stove for milky and richer soup.  You don’t want to miss A Qiang’s corn and carrot soup (玉米胡萝卜汤), the melange flavor of the two vegetables is beautifully enhanced by pork bones and yet you can detect the distinguished taste of each vegetable.

Chef Zhang Weiwei and Liang Guoqiang (A Qiang)

Steamed fish with black beans (清蒸鲈鱼) is a favorite Cantonese dish, but the perfectly steamed fish would be better with a smaller dosage of black beans and bird’s eye chillies, which upset the delicate subtlety of the dish itself. However, this dish will suit those spicy-prone palates. By the way, steamed rice would go well with this dish, which would be too salty and spicy eaten by itself. Also highly recommend is the deep-fried shrimp (头抽美极炬麻虾), crispy shrimps coated in savory light soy sauce.

The stir-fried french beans and mushrooms (烧汁四季豆鲍酿杏鲍菇) are excellent. Each sliced of meaty abalone-like mushroom is pasted with a dollop of ground pork, adding character to the dish, and making a sharp contrast between the fresh crunchy beans and soft-and-chewy mushroom, The extra zest comes from the tasty mass of meat. For a good vegetable dish, go for the baby cabbage casserole (干锅娃娃菜).

Yue Yuan Teahouse has a good selection of wines from France, Spain, Italy and Australia. There are also fresh ground coffee and Western desserts. The syrupy haws with a scoop of vanilla ice cream (冰淇淋炒红果) makes good use of local grown fruit is a wonderful substitute for sometimes hard to find blueberries or raspberries. Standard sweet fare includes things such as cheese cake, tiramisu, mango mousse cake, which are nothing to write home about, but they’re decent.

relaxing and comfortable venue

This restaurant is appropriately named Relax Living Bar for its sprawling and spacious venue, high-ceilings, lounging sofas, is indeed relaxing and comfortable. A good place for family or friends gathering.

腌制萝卜pickled turnips RMB16

话梅山药 Chinese yam                                                                                                  RMB16

凉拌苦菊苗 kuju sprouts                                                                                               RMB16

烧味双拼 roasted meat platter                                                                                     RMB45

杏香鸡 deep-fried chicken                                                                                            RMB45

清蒸鲈鱼 steamed sea bass                                                                                           RMB42

头抽美极炬麻虾 shrimp in soy sauce                                                                           RMB38

烧汁四季豆鲍酿杏鲍菇 french beans and mushrooms                                             RMB38

干锅娃娃菜  stewed cabbage                                                                                       RMB18

玉米胡萝卜汤 corn and turnip soup                                                                            RMB48

干炒牛河 beef rice noodles                                                                                            RMB26

冰淇淋炒红果  syrup haw and ice cream                                                                   RMB10

The above menu could easily feed ten persons.

18 Tea Garden

No. 18 Bancang Hutong, Nanluogu Xiang, Dongcheng District.

Tel: 6406 0918

十八茶院 东城区南锣鼓巷板厂胡同18号

18 Tea Garden, a compact courtyard house tucked down on Banchang Hutong, serves fantastic Japanese and Italian set meals during the day, and offers a reasonably-priced a la carte menu for dinner. Huang Yan (黄研),the head chef-cum-owner of this adorable courtyard dining venue, learned his culinary skills quite by chance. He moved from the banquet department to working in the kitchen when the chef suddenly quit at a 5-star hotel in Kyoto. Since then, Huang kept honing his cooking skills in different areas, including French and Italian, while picking up some Japanese cooking on his own.

18 Tea Garden

Teishioku (定食) for RMB78, consists of tempura, sushi and maki rolls, a turnip-and-scallop puree steamed with dried oysters over the top, and bean curd cooked in a carved out orange. The neatly arranged lacquer lunch box is both attractive and mouthwatering, especially the citrusy smell that whiffs out of the orange–so fresh and inviting.

Teishioku

The western dishes we tried here included a delicious risotto with arugula that was sprinkled with parmesan cheese (RMB42), spaghetti with eggplant and cheese (RMB38), spaghetti with clam sauce, and fettucinne with mullet roe in cream sauce (RMB58). The pastas were cooked to perfect al dente, and they tasted just like mom’s dishes–homey and excellent.

Other lunch sets are also available during the day. For example, the B lunch set (RMB38) contains hamburger steak, a sunny-side up egg, mashed potatoes, pasta, salad, and rice. The simpler A lunch set (RMB32) is stewed chicken and vegetables with cream sauce, also served with rice. The pasta lunch set is served with salad and bread and goes for RMB58, or RMB78 with soup.

Lunch set B

Simpler lunch set A

Many antique pieces are carefully planted in the middle of the courtyard, including a stone well and sculpted dog from the Yuan dynasty.

The courtyard living spaces have been converted into a kitchen and dining venues featuring traditional wooden tables and chairs; one room is furnished with tatami flooring, ideal for a large party from six to twelve people. The west wing private dining hall comes with bathroom, a luxury item for a courtyard house.

In addition to offering wonderful food, 18 Tea Garden is perfect for a quiet conversation followed by lovely teas and delicious butter cookies. The selective collection of Chinese teas are wonderful, especially shuixian, which is light and has a beautiful floral note.

Guoli Zhuang -- libido in a pot

Guoli Zhuang

500 meters West of the Dongsi Shitiao Bridge (south side of Dongsishitiao)

Tel 8403 5188

锅里壮

东四十条桥西500米 (马路南侧)

“Eat what, cures what,” (吃什么补什么 chi shenme bu shenme) is an old Chinese saying that has become dogma in the minds of many Chinese people, although obviously not everyone believes in such simplistic remedies.

Guoli Zhuang is a Beijing restaurant that specializes in serving various animal penises that allegedly work as an aphrodisiac for men (it’s supposed to give women nicer complexions, for some reason).

The restaurant, whose name translates directly as Strength in a Pot, has been opened for eight years. It claims to have developed tried and tested formulas based on recipes handed-down for generations to produce a “viagra” stew made of various animal penises and testicles.

In fact, the entire menu is related to animal penises and testicles from donkeys, turtles, stallions, deers, snakes, dogs and seals. The various offerings include the Penis Banquet (虾鞭宴), Testicles Hotpot (花鞭宝顶锅), Virility Banquet (壮席), Deer Feast (鹿全席), Stallion Banquet (种马宴) and Old Turtle Banquet (老龟宴).

As far as I’m concerned, this is just a myth. It’s not likely that the actual eating of animal penis is going to boost one’s libido. And if that is the result, as some Chinese diners insist, it may not be the action of eating the pizzle itself that works, but rather the arousing tales told by the restaurant’s well-trained waitresses:

“Dogs are the only animals that have a penis bone.”

“The bull’s penis is three to four times the length of donkey’s.”

“Snakes have two penises each, and each incident of sexual intercourse lasts between six to eight hours.”

These and other claims can be found on the restaurant’s web site under the heading Penis Culture.

I visited Guoli Zhuang with two friends a few years back, and we were told not to order any testicles–penises are good for ladies, especially good for beauty care. But we were told testicles could give a woman a hoarse voice or facial hair. So, we decided to play it safe by ordering a penis hotpot, which at RMB333 was one of the cheapest offerings on the menu (grade 1 imported Canadian seal penis costs several thousands yuan).

The hotpot broth was milky embellished with wolfberries, ginseng, Chinese angelica, red dates, dried longan, seahorse, and whole turtle, with its shell and head protruding above the soup bowl, which instantly made my two American colleagues hysterical.  We were advised to sip the soup as soon as the broth started to bubble before venturing into our penis feast. Our penis platter consisted of cow, sheep and northeastern black dog penises presented on a silver tray, neatly arranged, and they were cut to look like a blooming flower. The penis itself was flavorless with a chewy and gummy texture like  tendon.  It was difficult to bring it down to your throat, honestly. And I’m not the squeamish type when it comes to eating.

“Eat what, cures what is a Chinese myth,” insists Fang Shimin, a scientist and the author of a recent Chinese book that questions the validity of much of Traditional Chinese Medicine. “This is just imagination.”

“The mind is really something,” he said. “If no one told you something like animal penis had an effect, it wouldn’t.”

Mr. Fang says that some TCM companies that sell ancient Chinese herbal concoctions to increase libido were discovered to have added Viagra to their own prescriptions to make them seem effective.