It was what I thought a casual hot pot dinner at a family friend's place. These are people who know their food and would go the mile to get the best and freshest ingredients dinner. I have already up my expectations and was expecting a flavourful soup base with a table full of tender and thin slices of meats, fresh seafood and vibrant green veggies.
We were greeted with a bottle of Château Haut-Bages-Avérous Pauillac 2001, a Cabernet Sauvignon from Bordeaux that has the scent of spicy fruits. A medium bodied wine that needs only 15 minutes out of the bottle, it is quite tannic and you can taste blackberries and cedar. I don't know much about wines, but it was very well balanced and I couldn't stop drinking it.
A very strong yet pleasant aroma started to drift out from the kitchen. It wasn't a familiar scent but I know it was from something savory and my mouth started to water. I couldn't figure out what it was but finally, the dish was brought out and I saw medium sized golden brown nuggets on a plate.
"You must try this", uncle said to me, "Is 金蠔". I've never heard of such thing and I thought it was just regular oysters cooked in a special way. But when I bit into this ordinary looking piece of oyster, a tiny bit of juice/oil squirted out and the flavor was very smoky and intense. It was not just a piece of oyster! 金蠔 (literal translation = Golden Oyster) is actually semi dried oysters, but not fully dried to 蠔豉 stage where it turns tough and salty. The texture of the 金蠔 was in between fresh oysters and fully dried ones, a little chewy on the outside but still have a semi-gooey center. These little morsels were prepared in the simplest way so that you can appreciate the true flavor - slightly pan fried with a bit of oil n butter. When is golden brown on both sides, splash in white wine n cover for 1 min. Eat. The after taste lingered in your mouth - you taste sweetness and a very distinct mineral flavor that oysters have. Washing it down with a sip of the red wine, it was rather orgasmic.
Apparently, 金蠔 is a lost Chinese delicacy. I am not sure why since they are so darn good. But uncle said that he got this batch from a friend who did the drying himself. These specially treated oysters aren't for sell! They were 私人珍藏.
Is not something that you would want to have a lot of because is rather heavy on the palate. I probably wouldn't have appreciated it this much if they served me a plateful of these 金蠔s.
The hotpot dinner was quite amazing as well, with homemade wontons & fishballs, freshly caught & thinly sliced fish and squids and tender meats. Dad bought a big bottle of sake which they all happily drank during dinner. I didn't have any, I stayed focused and continued drinking the red wine.
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