On Eating a Steaming Hot Bowl of Sweet AIDS Soup

Editor's Note: Asia Obscura's Andy Deemer has been kind enough to let us rummage through his archives for some of his best posts from his Beijing days. We're sharing them here to give you some inspiration to get out and explore our city if you're sticking around town over the holiday week.

“I’ll have the AIDS soup,” I said.

It wasn’t officially called AIDS soup. Not now. Shortly after I’d blogged about their deviant menus, the restaurant had crossed out every appearance of the word “AIDS” with a sharpie. Now it was simply “Strong Tibetan Sheep Placenta Nourishing Soup [XXXX].”

And this was what I’d come for.

I’m long overdue posting about this incredible meal of AIDS Soup, sheep placenta and frog skin. It was weeks, months?, ago already. But I guess the awesomeness of the meal has just taken this long to sink in.

There were six of us. We came for the Chinglish.

… But we stayed for the food.

It’s a fascinating find in a Beijing mall, just steps from a Starbucks, a Beard Papa, and Hello Kitty Dreams Restaurant. It doesn’t read like Beijing 2012. The menu is bloated with bugs and turtles and obscurata. I almost expected to find live monkey brains listed.

Read the rest of this post at AsiaObscura.

Photos: Andy Deemer