delights in dining

Last night my friend Jill and and I went out to get some food at the end of the day. We usually hit the gym and then grab dinner afterwards at various hole in the wall "establishments" in the area. Yesterday we decided to try someplace new. We ended up at a regular-looking place, neither clean nor dirty, neither nice nor not-nice, where we ordered some eggplant, some cold cucumber salad with cilantro, some some stir-fried egg with unnamed "vegetables," and also some snow peas. Other than the eggplant tasting like feces and the the rest of the food being bland, it was a "great meal."

There's a point to the story, and I'm getting to it: it's not uncommon for DOG MEAT to be featured on menus around here. It's certainly not in all restaurants, but you wouldn't have to search far to find some tasty, well-seasoned, tender loin of puppy. That being said, this restaurant DID in fact offer dog meat on the menu, although we did not choose to partake. About 3/4 of the way into our meal, however, a waitress entered the restaurant holding a plump dog in her arms, and took him into the kitchen. I thought nothing of this. (Animals in restaurants? Who cares? Worse things have happened.)

BUT THEN this dog gave a few shrill barks from the kitchen, there was a scuffle, then all quiet. I still didn't think much of it....until 20 minutes later all 20 waitresses and chefs and managers all sat down to fresh, steaming bowls of soup and rice. What kind of soup, you ask?

You guessed it: DOG MEAT SOUP.