There was fruit salad, too, with a generous dollop of cream sauce. Topped with shrimp. Yes, shrimp. There was also what they said was going to be soup, but looked like watered down algae. Finally, there was the black mushroom dish.
You have to understand, I l-o-o-o-v-e mushrooms as much as the next person. I could give up meat most days if we had a wider variety of fresh mushrooms. You can imagine that mushrooms more than made up having tikoy for dessert. That is, until they showed me what would go with the mushrooms.
Hair. It looked exactly like the hair I would pull out from my brush at night.
Hair!
All in all, the meal was not something I looked forward to. Until I sat down and actually started eating.
The watered down moss turned out to be pureed spinach. The process — and whatever magic chef Romel performed — apparently took out the vegetable’s extra bitterness. The result was a kind of egg drop soup with a spike. I had two bowls of that.
Tikoy Man. William Go, former president of Davao Kaisa. (davaotoday.com photo by Jonald Mahinay)
And the hair? Seamoss! Gastronomically delightful seamoss that would top every variety of mushroom that I have known in my life. It was definitely not hair (yes, I have tasted hair before). It was like very thin miswa in your mouth, only not as flimsy, and with quite a distinctive taste.
Finally, there was tikoy. It seems that my sister – genius that she is — is nowhere near chef Romel’s caliber. Apparently, the trick with cooking tikoy is that it should remain soft, but not too soft like a chewed up gum. And the egg should not coat the tikoy completely but should just be brushed very lightly. Do not deep fry, they admonish. So, what do you get? Light golden brown slabs of perfection Truly this side of heaven!
I will still crave for my banana-cue fix. But if tikoy like that and a banana cue is placed on the table side by side, I will pick out the tikoy every time.
No wonder the sweet and sticky tikoy symbolizes unity and family togetherness. No wonder, Chinese mothers use tikoy to lure their kids back home during special occasions such as New Year. I will never look at the glob the same way again. It is wonderful!
There is a lesson to be learned here. But I’m just too stuffed to think.
My only advise to you is that the next time your Chinese classmate offers you watered down algae, stringy hair sea moss and a glob of tikoy, tell him to pile it on.
Kung Hei Fat Choy!
Food
