Don't Call Me a Foodie

I have no taste, nor do I claim to; I am not a gourmet although most definitely a gourmand.

I eat what I like and make no apologies for it.

My penchant for putting meat on a white pizza has been fodder for discussion, my omission of shrimp in a mussels and shrimp dish was questioned and the list goes on.

Just this week, a friend read my post about having Mahi-Mahi souvlakia the other night at Basilis and took me to task for having a fish version of something he deemed should have been pork, or at the very least, lamb.

But Mahi-Mahi? Blasphemous apparently, not that his chiding mattered to me.

Actually, I think it made me a little defiant, which paid off in spades today in the most unexpected place.

I was craving broccoli at lunch (always a sure sign that I've been eating more salad greens than true veggies of late), so I decided to get lunch at Peking, good old Peking.

Like a lot of people, I order pretty much the same thing whenever I do Chinese and for me, that's Hunan something.

I don't really care what the protein in it is and I've eaten them all: shrimp, chicken, pork, beef. I like this dish because of its heat and the abundance of broccoli and mushies.

But one of today's specials was Hunan Fish and I admit, I was curious. The fish was tilapia, a fish I never seek out since it seems to be pretty much defined by its preparation.

But in this case, it made my taste buds sing because it was such a good conduit for all that spicy sauce.

 The fish was so completely infused with the Hunan flavor as to take the dish to a whole new level. Its texture was perfect and each bite brought another hit of that heat; the flavor of the sauce was one with the tilapia.

And of course, it's not on the regular menu.

Okay, now I've laid myself bare again by eating something that will undoubtedly be scoffed at by someone with superior taste buds.

Not that it matters, because I'm the one who had the exceptional lunch.

But then, I always concede to the superiority of just about everyone else's palate over mine.

I just like to eat.