The Beijing Penis Restaurant, officially known as Guolizhuang, doesn't just serve cock. You can get absolutely anything there.
Stewed Deer Face. Sheep foetus in brown garlic sauce. Peacock claws. It's like a Guangzhouren's wet dream.
And the peacock's name was as poetic as the plating. It was called A Set of Palms from Heaven and Earth.
I almost gagged.
"Do you have any regular food," I asked, nervous.
The waitress assured me she did, and then proceeded to flip through the entire menu twice. She was sure there was something. In the end, she found us a plate of shredded tofu skin. Normal.
Normal food here is actually just cock, served however you want.
There was dog cock served with peppers, the baculum sticking from the bowl like a culinary erection.
"This will give you magical powers," said the waitress, pointing to the penis bone.
The magical fool behind this meal, Blake, suggested I wear it around my neck as a talisman. I wanted to vomit. But I took a piece anyway. It was chewy. Nauseatingly chewy. I worked, and I chewed, and I worked some more, and I swallowed.
"Nice job getting that dong down, kiddo!"
The carpaccio-styled deer penis was easier. It was served alongside a furiously spicy wasabi dipping sauce. The gag reflex was more familiar this time. Just like sushi, or horse sashimi.
"Never thought a mouthful of cock would be so hard to get down," someone said.
"Yep," someone else responded with a grim face. "Dick meat really is chewy."
According to the menu, the world's greats all love a bit of cock. Napoleon, the Duke of Dong...
Spielberg, Picasso, Lincoln and Mao crossing time, distance and culture to share a plate of delicious dick...
Our main course was a pot of cock.
Was it really cow, deer, ox and horse penis stew? Did the waitress insist all of these cocks were once a meter long? Perhaps my memory is clouded by the deer blood whiskey she handed out, but all of this rings true.
And the dish rang positively horrible as well. One of the cocks was a small white glob that resembled uni or snot in texture. Unlike those, it wasn't even edible. It would get stuck in the back teeth, refusing to come out until you picked at it furiously.
"At least the balls aren't chewy," said Blake, munching down on another piece of spiced fried testicles in capsicum.
"They're tasty, too!"
"Don't eat that," warned the waitress, waving madly at Michelle.
"Wha-" said the poor girl, chopsticks already lifted and poised.
"You can try it, but only a little piece. If you eat it, you'll grow an adams apple, and a beard!"
Michelle's mouth dropped open. The waitress was serious.
"Is there something else I can eat instead?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" The waitress grabbed a spare menu, flipped through it, and immediately found the dish she'd recommend.
Eight Treasure Grilled Deer Foetus, garnished with broccoli. It's great for women. Works wonders on the skin.
Michelle clenched her face, and ate maggots and worms instead. At least those wouldn't give her a beard.
The waitress had warned of the fire that would start in the face: twitching ears, a burning nose, red cheeks. It would slide down through the body. The chest would rise, the breath would race. As the fire continues to burn, it would climax furiously in the middle. Your loins would blaze.
She said I'd be going all night.
To be honest, the only "going all night" for me was a relentless series of trips to the toilet. But it was all night.
# # #
In retrospect, I'm confused that we didn't order this pineapple. The name appears to be "Flaming Cock and Balls." How absolutely wonderful.
Guolizhuang, 34B Dongsishitiao (just west of the Yongheking Fast Food Restaurant)
Dongsishitiao Subway.
Beijing, China.
+86 8411 6666.
This post originally appeared on AsiaObscura.com.
Follow Andy Deemer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AsiaObscura
people from nations that have starved have no problem eating anything. i joked, if it moves, its dinner! in china my sister came up to me, clutching my arm i said whats wrong briana? she said i saw a roasted dog. it was all puffed up like a ball park frank. do you want to see it? of course i was horrified but not enough to miss being able to say i saw a roasted dog in china...we went to the multi storied no walls cement flats and she said it must have been over there, we went no dog. all of a sudden a grim look went over her face, my god someone bought it. someone bought the dog!!!!!!
in china my hand to buddha i never saw anything except 1 dog and it had a bloodly leg, i said to my sister they must have tried to sycel it as it went by. face it go veggie when traveling abroad to formerly starving nations. next trip is italy. yes, italy. sweet italy...
Where the hell is their heart? I know cultural differences but to boil puppies in oil does not an appetite make. In some places they kill the animal in front
Of the customer. The food and inhumane practices make me sick.
The first decides to try the blue-plate special "cow's tongue".
The second one states that he couldn't handle eating something that came out of an animal's mouth...
He'll just have a couple eggs...
It's all a matter of perspective. Isn't it?
(Aish. There's something so darling, sweet and ultimately entirely naive about gut-reaction Americans, who read any critique of foreign X as reeking of racism.)
This isn't snout to tail (although I do have a reservation over at St Johns Spitalfields next week! Woohoo! Whole suckling pig, bone marrow, YES!!!) This is specifically eating cock and balls. And deer-murdering fetus, which I didn't dip into. If you skim down the comments, you'll discover all of this even freaks out those people you refer to as (so pleasantly, I might add) "crazy qing qong." Sorry, "crazy ching chong." Zhang Taitai, and Li Xiansheng, and the other Li Xiansheng.... Zhao Lei, Xiao Huang, even Liu Laoshi... they all thought me a mad fool for eating this trash.
I'm a great fan of a lot of the techniques and tricks making Chinese cooking so varied, healthy and tasty, but the moment it gets to cocks and balls, reason will flush itself down the toilet. Don't get me wrong - there's plenty of proper healthy things you can cook up with a variety of intestines, testicles and placenta, and it's all universally good and it even tastes good. I have learned to remain open-minded about victimless attacks on the senses, and I have come to like, nay, love, say, Durian, but certain aspects of "traditional" Chinese cuisine are not about taste, texture or the craft of preparing food, it's animistic troglodytism.
"You are what you eat" stands as a somewhat truism. But I don't think eating brain will make you smarter, or cock make you hornier... I just think it'll make you into one who eats brain or cock.
And I can't wait for my sweetmeats!!!
However, cultural considerations aside, it seems to me that this restaurant is a novelty establishment, probably catering to "story tellers" like you for what seems to me to be exorbitant amounts of money. Your interviews with the local citizens of all ages prove that this is definitely an "outlier", not in the mainstream, but it makes a hell of a headline ("Beijing's Single Most Horrific Meal"). In fact, you took the time to tell the story of more than the single most horrific meal, you happily told us about many, and threw in some humorous anecdotes as well. I liked the "piece of spiced fried testicles in capsicum" that could perhaps cause an Adam's apple and beard to grow on a woman, and that you would be "going all night long", and that you did, but not in THAT way.
All that said, I thought the article was pretty disgusting and is one of the increasingly National Enquirer-like articles published in the HP lately. This is following the series of "zombie" stories, and multiple "Penis-related" titillating headlines. Another current story running on the HP is that the man with allegedly the "largest penis in the world" was frisked by the TSA.
Gross!