Had a local whole lamb BBQ
I was notified that a local watering hole was going to have a whole lamb BBQ. I was looking forward to this, usually I'm the only person who cooks out. It was going to be nice to be the guest for a change, and relax and watch the cooking while holding a cold one.
I was immediately disappointed by the fact the lamb was being cooked offsite. It was going to be transported here from somewhere else. I wanted to watch them cook it and ask questions. Turns out, the G20 is going on in the provincial capital of Hangzhou in a week or two and the authorities are going nuts. They're enforcing all the ticky-tack laws they usually let slide, like no tables on the sidewalk. Usually it's not a problem if the owner (that's him in the suspenders) takes over the sidewalk especially if it's after 9pm when traffic is low and he leaves a path. But there are cops on the streets everywhere. Lots of my foreigner friends have had the police come to their residences to check them. I hate when they have these big international events, it's a huge hassle. I even got searched on the ferry going across the river. They made me open up all my bike's compartments.
The guy finally arrives with a big styrofoam container on his scooter. He doesn't have anywhere to put it, so he puts it on the bar owner's motorcycle. Fun fact: this is a new production motorcycle from the 1930s. Did you ever see "The Great Escape" with Steve McQueen? When he's riding the motorbike and trying to jump the barriers to the Swiss frontier? This is that exact same motorcycle. Maybe you remember it as the motorcycle with the sidecar in all those WWII documentaries? See, in the 1930s the Germans gave a lot of assistance to Nationalist China. One of these was building licensed copies of BMW's R71. Then the Germans got friendly with the Japanese, who told them to knock it off and stop helping China. After the Communists took over, they kept the factory running and never changed the tooling. Even today you can buy a brand new motorcycle of this type, which is what this one is. It has the sidecar and everything.
So the guy unloads the lamb onto trays and starts carving. I ask him how he cooked it and he shows me some phone photos of it in an open brick pit on a big rotisserie. I've seen this kind of Chinese BBQ restaurant before, I'll have to post about it sometime. It's the only kind of restaurant that is even remotely similar to what we have in America. Otherwise it's pretty much all skewers of meat, vegetables, and seafood. He starts carving but the next time I look over he's just pulling it apart with his hands.
So, that's one way to do it, I guess. Not any kind of systematic carving. More like just tearing a carcass up. At least this shows the meat is tender.
This is what the whole lamb looked like before carving. It's not very big and there's not much meat on it . It's pretty thin especially along the middle ribs. Sorry the photo's blurry, I couldn't tell on my phone.
Here's a closeup of the skin so you can see what was going on. It's just seasoned with cilantro stalks and cumin seeds. Not any kind of rub. They had a dry dip for the meat that was heavily salted and was all right. But that was all as far as flavor. It wasn't smoked. It was kind of rubbery to be honest. It lacked flavor and the skin, while crisp, had little flavor as well.
This is a closeup of the meat bin after he's finished pulling it apart. There were a lot of bones in there, especially meatless ribs. Plus connective tissue and gristle and other parts of the animal that wasn't meat, wasn't skin. Had to cut that off before you could eat the rest. And the serving suggestion wasn't great either: on top of plain bread rolls with no sauce or toppings.
Kind of blah, really. Once I discarded all the bones and trimmed the extra tissue, and heaped the pure meat up on my bun, it was all right. It just could have been much better. All it needed was a dry brine and a rub. Failing that, a sauce would have livened things. Perhaps a topping for the buns like cole slaw, or even a side dish. But it was just bread and meat. Usually I'm all up for a pure BBQ experience with just bread and meat, but in this case it fell flat.
This is what I ended up with on my plate. Eh, it wasn't terrible. I still ate four rolls full of meat. The lamb was tender, but it had a bit of a tang to it. It could have been a lot better. It was nice knowing why it could have been better. I finished and took off, headed to my friend's birthday party...which was also being held at a Chinese barbecue restaurant. The kind with the skewers. Maybe I'll do a post about one of those sometime.
I was immediately disappointed by the fact the lamb was being cooked offsite. It was going to be transported here from somewhere else. I wanted to watch them cook it and ask questions. Turns out, the G20 is going on in the provincial capital of Hangzhou in a week or two and the authorities are going nuts. They're enforcing all the ticky-tack laws they usually let slide, like no tables on the sidewalk. Usually it's not a problem if the owner (that's him in the suspenders) takes over the sidewalk especially if it's after 9pm when traffic is low and he leaves a path. But there are cops on the streets everywhere. Lots of my foreigner friends have had the police come to their residences to check them. I hate when they have these big international events, it's a huge hassle. I even got searched on the ferry going across the river. They made me open up all my bike's compartments.
The guy finally arrives with a big styrofoam container on his scooter. He doesn't have anywhere to put it, so he puts it on the bar owner's motorcycle. Fun fact: this is a new production motorcycle from the 1930s. Did you ever see "The Great Escape" with Steve McQueen? When he's riding the motorbike and trying to jump the barriers to the Swiss frontier? This is that exact same motorcycle. Maybe you remember it as the motorcycle with the sidecar in all those WWII documentaries? See, in the 1930s the Germans gave a lot of assistance to Nationalist China. One of these was building licensed copies of BMW's R71. Then the Germans got friendly with the Japanese, who told them to knock it off and stop helping China. After the Communists took over, they kept the factory running and never changed the tooling. Even today you can buy a brand new motorcycle of this type, which is what this one is. It has the sidecar and everything.
So the guy unloads the lamb onto trays and starts carving. I ask him how he cooked it and he shows me some phone photos of it in an open brick pit on a big rotisserie. I've seen this kind of Chinese BBQ restaurant before, I'll have to post about it sometime. It's the only kind of restaurant that is even remotely similar to what we have in America. Otherwise it's pretty much all skewers of meat, vegetables, and seafood. He starts carving but the next time I look over he's just pulling it apart with his hands.
So, that's one way to do it, I guess. Not any kind of systematic carving. More like just tearing a carcass up. At least this shows the meat is tender.
This is what the whole lamb looked like before carving. It's not very big and there's not much meat on it . It's pretty thin especially along the middle ribs. Sorry the photo's blurry, I couldn't tell on my phone.
Here's a closeup of the skin so you can see what was going on. It's just seasoned with cilantro stalks and cumin seeds. Not any kind of rub. They had a dry dip for the meat that was heavily salted and was all right. But that was all as far as flavor. It wasn't smoked. It was kind of rubbery to be honest. It lacked flavor and the skin, while crisp, had little flavor as well.
This is a closeup of the meat bin after he's finished pulling it apart. There were a lot of bones in there, especially meatless ribs. Plus connective tissue and gristle and other parts of the animal that wasn't meat, wasn't skin. Had to cut that off before you could eat the rest. And the serving suggestion wasn't great either: on top of plain bread rolls with no sauce or toppings.
Kind of blah, really. Once I discarded all the bones and trimmed the extra tissue, and heaped the pure meat up on my bun, it was all right. It just could have been much better. All it needed was a dry brine and a rub. Failing that, a sauce would have livened things. Perhaps a topping for the buns like cole slaw, or even a side dish. But it was just bread and meat. Usually I'm all up for a pure BBQ experience with just bread and meat, but in this case it fell flat.
This is what I ended up with on my plate. Eh, it wasn't terrible. I still ate four rolls full of meat. The lamb was tender, but it had a bit of a tang to it. It could have been a lot better. It was nice knowing why it could have been better. I finished and took off, headed to my friend's birthday party...which was also being held at a Chinese barbecue restaurant. The kind with the skewers. Maybe I'll do a post about one of those sometime.
Comment