infy JGOLD REPORT: Delicious Skull Meat for the Asking
Is there a contest for the best steamed fish head in the San Gabriel Valley? Because if there is, the example at the new Hunan Seafood might win the prize — a mammoth, silvery head, jaws agape, eyes frosted in death, a half-inch of chopped chiles troweled over the skull like a layer of Christmas-y scarlet-and-green asphalt. The fish head is borne to the table in a casserole the size of a hubcap, and the bottom inch or so is lapped by a pickle-tart broth. When you finally stop admiring the behemoth, stop trying to figure out whether the massive skeletal structure belonged to a carp or a boat-tippingly large river cat, the flesh comes away in hunks almost the size of cigarette packs, transformed by its half-hour trip through the steamer into juicy mouthfuls marrying the intense vegetable bite of fresh chiles and garlic, pickled chiles and ginger, with the sweet, mellow taste of the sea.
I have yet to sample the cuisines of the San Gabriel Valley. I rented a room in Alhambra for infy the younger. He stayed in a house full of chinese nationals, and mostly ate ramen and peanut butter. Fish heads anyone?
