On a street corner, a guy toasts a whole ox tail with an aerosol torch.
This is leftover rice sitting out in the open, totally exposed to flies, dirt, bacteria and mold, and the occasional human or dog footprint. When you order Fried or Cantonese Rice, DON'T.
(Update: information is pretty hard to come by, shrouded as it is in bad English and an odd sense of humor. This rice is probably for a pig-feed collection.)
There are stranger but safer alternatives. Sometimes, for breakfast, we get sealed packets of rice or barley--probably the same thing but not exposed to air. It is garnished with a large pack of sugar.
We also get packets of sticky rice wrapped in a banana leaf. This one has a banana center, colored with sweet red bean. The rice gets a banana infusion--the flavor and the stickiness. It's so strange I tried hard not to like it, but my taste-buds approve.
There's another one with an egg center. Also good, though the egg is pretty ancient.
Here's some nice quail eggs and some really frigging bloody beef--this was the first home-cooked meal I didn't devour, and I'm glad I didn't. A trip to the local meat vendor showed that while meat is relatively fresh, it is always exposed to flies. Luckily Jenny came home for lunch and translated for me, and when we had it for dinner it was well cooked. And I was back to my piggy self.
Once again, let's end on a sweet note: some nice sugary green bean porridge, served hot or cold.
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