Exotic foods top the menu along Dong Hua Men Avenue

** Countdown to our adoption: Only three days left before we get Matthew. **

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

BEIJING, China (Saturday, Dec. 6, 2008, 11:45 p.m.) – Fish balls, sheep kidneys, pork stomach, fried roaches, squid on a stick and other exotic food sold briskly Saturday night along Dong Hua Men Avenue here in Beijing.

Some looked interesting, others looked questionable.

But locals didn’t care as they visited booths that lined one side of two city blocks. Vendors eager for a sale constantly yelled loudly at customers in thickly accented Mandarin, urging them to buy a meal.

The scene repeats every night in the historic Wangfujing shopping district – a quick, five-minute walk down from the Novotel Peace Hotel where Pam and I are staying during the Beijing leg of our adoption trip.

While the weather was brisk Saturday night, it was noticeably warmer than our first three nights in Beijing when the temperature fell to near 10 degrees. And that made it perfect for a two-hour walk to explore the nearby night life.

Let me state up front: Pam and I didn’t try the strange foods. We didn’t want to do so, we had no desire to do so and we didn’t plan to do so. Why would I want to eat roaches when I suffer from a bad case of roachaphobia?

Food at the night market is served on wooden skewers, in small soup bowls and even in half a pineapple. Some looked pretty darn good – from the fried ice cream and candied fruit on a stick to the fried dumplings and noodles.

But we still couldn’t bring ourselves to try any of it.

The closest we will come to that while in Beijing is buying and eating those grilled breakfast wraps we found at Wal-Mart SuperCenter on Friday. In fact, Pam wants to go back there Sunday to buy and eat the same thing one more time for lunch.

For many people in Beijing and across China, folks who have lived here their entire lives and are used to eating unusual and exotic foods, the night food market is perfectly fine and offers an inexpensive way to buy dinner.

That’s not for Pam and me. We just aren’t used to that kind of food. Sure, we love the roasted duck in Beijing and plan to try roasted pigeon when we travel to Guangzhou in about a week.

But we draw the line at unusual foods, including some you often find at good Chinese restaurants – eel, sand worms and water bugs to name a few. That’s just not us.

So it really wasn’t a surprise when Pam turned to me after about 30 minutes of exploring the food booths and asked if I was ready. The pungent odor of old fish, raw squid and other things started to upset her stomach.

If that wasn’t enough, the visuals were just as striking. Who could forget the starfish, squid, roaches, sheep kidneys and small snakes skewered on wooden sticks ready to be fried.

So we turned around and started back to the hotel.

Copyright 2008 by Terry R. Cassreino. All rights reserved.