Meat Stick Story

I bought lamb sticks from these guys above. I met them on the street corner in the city of Guiyang They are Uighurs from Xinjiang and they spoke questionable Mandarin. What led me on to their lack of Mandarin was the following:

when I ordered lamb sticks from them, I told them that I wanted it a little spicy. "Not too spicy" were my exact words. Then I proceeded to wait as they liberally coated my lambsticks with red spices (I thought it was a bit strange, but I was pretty sure that I made my request clear. Maybe he's putting on paprika was the thought I comforted myself with.)

There was a little girl who had ordered before me and she told him, as he was toasting our sticks, "No spices, please". He also continued to liberally toss on the red stuff. (Must be paprika, right?) When the meat sticks were almost done, I saw he pile on a bunch of white powder as he rotated the skewers. (Hmm, is that msg?) In the spirit of taking in the local culinary traditions, I did not protest.

Finally, my lamb sticks were ready. I was really looking forward to them as it was a rather chilly day and it'll be good to have something nice and warm in my stomach. The first bite was awesome! Umm...Yummy! Then the spices kicked in! (Not too spicy, huh?) It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck my tongue. I felt like I was in a cartoon and I had flames coming out of my mouth. I was puffing out white steam as I desperately inhaled the cold air around me in the hopes to cool my tongue. This was by far, the hottest thing I have ever eaten. I now realized the obvious fact: That wasn't paprika that he was basting the meat sticks in while they cooked, they were peppers!

One funny thing about me is that my head sweats when I eat spicy food, with the amount of sweat directly proportional to the degree of spicyness. So I must have looked funny to be sweating profusely when the temperature is nearing freezing outside.

The inhaling cold air trick didn't quite work, so I was thankful for Dicos, where I washed my mouth out with cold water and then doused down a cup of cold drink to put out the fire. All the while feeling bad for the little girl that ordered before me, boy, she didn't know what she had coming!