bitter melon

I needed to write a separate post about this dish we had during my dim sum brunch, particularly because this was the only dish that I did not like. Why? It contained the icky bitter melon.

T recently had a post about making soup out of the bitter melon gourd. I made a comment that I hated eating the bitter melon as a child, and would rather starve than obey my parents when they force fed me the bitter thing. I don't recall the last time I ate it, but I'm sure it was a very long time ago.

Anyway, so while we were picking out dishes for our brunch, I wanted to select the Shrimp Rice Noodle Roll, but my friend said that I should try their specialty noodle roll dish. She pointed to it on the list and I swear I thought it said "Winter Melon with Chicken in Rice Noodle Roll", so I said, "Sure, what the heck, I'll try it."

When the dish came out, I immediately thought to myself that this is not winter melon.
And indeed it was not. It was "Bitter Melon with Chicken in Rice Noodle Roll". Before I could say anything, my friend served me a heaping portion of this bitterness onto my plate. This is one of my friends who is older in age and she used to help me with apartment stuff when I first lived in SF, and I would return the favor by helping her translate her issues and writing letters in English for her. So, let's just say she's not one of those friends where I can freely say "HELL NO, I'm not eating that crap!"

I did not want to be rude, so I ate the serving of bitter melon chicken rice noodle dish, down to the last piece of bitter melon that was on my plate.

And you know what? I still hate it. I hate the strong bitterness taste. It brought back painful memories. I tried to mask the bitterness with dollops of chili sauce but that didn't work. I tried not to chew it too much and swallowed quickly without choking myself so that I could just smile and say "um, not bad...but it's not my favorite." So thankfully, she didn't serve me another heaping portion.

I think I drink a whole pot of tea just to get that bitterness taste out of my mouth so I could go on enjoying the other dishes. Yuck, I still shudder at the thought that I actually ate the bitter melon again.