BBQ City

Yes, they gave us orange slices.

Attendant: Marc, Dan (all the way from Melbourne), Mele, Em, Trent, Dougie, Leah, Ben, Shaun, Rosie, Krista (all the way from London) and Sam

Special mention: Cristi - Double parked on Gouger Street on a funky-ass Friday freak-out to get some takeaway.

Mele

Dear Readers,
I think this photo says it all:

My Soul is Crying

The look on my face was in no way exaggerated for this blog.
What’s worse than eating offal?
Eating it with Congee! 'Congee' is apparently the Chinese word for ‘porridge’ and translates to GRUEL in Mandarin! I am feeling like this blog is rapidly turning into ‘Stupid Westerner eats poor Chinese people’s food’. This is an extension of my wog food philosophy ‘Anglos making hick Italian food hip’. My Nonno refused to eat pizza because it is ‘poor people’s food’. My grandmother comes from Naples, the home of pizza. In this region, pizza is mostly bread with one or two meagre toppings. PIZZA IS THE RICE OF ITALY. Polenta is not something cool you get in a restaurant. It is CORN GRUEL that my Nonna serves covered in tasty napolitana sauce, to HIDE the gruel-like gruelness of the damn stuff. Olive oil dipped in bread is not a novelty, it is something that all my Anglo friends laughed at until they saw it in restaurants.
However, congee is so bad it can never be hip. I felt so sick I could hardly eat anything else at BBQ City. The Steamed Chicken Empress and Tea Duck are second to none, but BBQ City doesn’t have much else to offer other than barbeque, and if you order anything else, you are probably drunk or doing it as an experiment.
In which case, I award BBQ city 70/100 and blame myself for having to eat liver porridge. Thumbs up for the record 12 diners at the city! We love you all!

Sam

I, like Mele, also suspect that with our 'weirdest thing on the menu' rule, this blog may descend into the restaurant reviewing equivalent of "Dare/Double Dare/Physical Challenge!!!". But I'm sure that there will come a time when we have eaten everything.
Jellyfish is no longer weird. Fish'n'bacon is no longer weird.
Salty porridge with fresh pork liver and kidneys is now no longer weird.
Correction: it's still weird. But we're not eating it again.
If you think it's not weird, then you eat it.

AND THEY DID.
Brave, brave fools.

But I am being unkind in my appraisal of what is actually one of the tastiest restaurants we've been to yet.
It's cheap and the barbeque is spectacular. Ribs, duck and chicken served with a little minced spring onion sauce really is my favourite dish on The Epic so far.

Everybody scream YUM YUM

Everything else was fairly standard Chinese restaurant fare and nothing you wouldn't find in any crowded Chinese eatery. Observe:

The Hastily Ordered Fish and MSG

Still better than congee

The Chicken You Definitely Don't Remember Ordering With Yogurt Sauce

That congee is starting to look pretty good

The Vagina Dumplings

Traditional and erotic

Also excellent was the deep-fried eggplant which was so good it could almost have been meat. So that's your BBQ City menu: Triple Crown BBQ Plate, Deep-Fried Eggplant and no congee, ever. A quick word of advice: the BBQ City wait-staff have a reputation for vagueness which ranges from forgetful to outright surly. Our waitress this evening was quick and polite and even attempted steer me away from the offal porridge (and towards the preserved egg porridge). They were even discreet about asking us to leave so they could let other patrons have our huge corner of the City.

But we finally got the hint when they threw a teapot full of piss on the Lazy Susan.

Next stop: Ba Guo Bu Yi (I got it wrong last time - but we may have to hurry, as we left BBQ City the place was plastered with poster proclaiming "All Food 10% Off - The More You Eat, The More You Save!" I'm not worried.)