It's not often I don't cook a meal. Be it frozen wontons, reheating curry, or even if it's just some sort of really quick and filling soup thing, something would be done in the kitchen before a meal.
Not today.
It was 6:30. I was hungry. There's nothing in the fridge, coz I haven't had time to buy groceries. I wanted something spicy. And meaty. And realised there was a restaurant downstairs that did takeaway.
It's a "new" Chinese restaurant that opened at the beginning of the year, specialising in Szechuan food. And there was a 10% discount for takeaway.
Pretty good deal? Read on.
I ordered a Szechuan spicy chicken. It's basically chicken with a Szechuan pepper and chilli vinaigrette. Very spicy. Salad like cold. I forgot about that last fact when I ordered, but that's ok, coz as long as it's good, I'll be happy.
Obviously, it wasn't.
There wasn't much wrong with the sauce. It was just...lackluster. But the big disappointment was the chicken.
The pieces--all pieces--were on the bone. There's nothing wrong with chicken served on the bone, as long as there's some good meat in each piece.
In my case, it was just bone. OK, maybe it did have some meat. But the meat was less than a third of the piece. Yup, 2/3 bone. Every piece. Fail #1.
But I paid good money - VERY good money (say, half a week of grocery money) for it. Waste not, right? You'd want to eat as much as you can so you get your money's worth, right?
Try eating a piece of chicken on the bone with the bone disintegrating in your mouth. Yeah, I'm not kidding: the bone crumbled. A small poke made the bone crack and break into at least 6 pieces. To the extent it was almost impossible to separate the meat from the bone. Fail #2.
Then there's the skin. It was supposed to be slightly gelatinous. It wasn't. I felt--and saw--the remnants of feathers still stuck on. Actually, there was a full feather still attached. Fail #3.
And to top things off, this cold dish was more than cold: a piece of chicken was actually still frozen. Fail #4.
4 fails. Bin time. A twinge of pain stung my heart as I disposed of the box and its contents, but there was no way I'd finish that. Not tonight, not ever. And I sure won't be getting anything from there again.