Flyin Fin UPDATE - Redondo Beach

Eating in China gave me an iron stomach. Other people get sick from the simplest of street foods, and a cafeteria epidemic took down half the medicine department this year. I, on the other hand, haven't had food poisoning for 15 years.

I love being able to stomach the best of foods and the worst of foods, but I do miss certain luxuries when I'm abroad. Aside from insects and horrifying arachnids, one of few things I actively avoid is Chinese sushi. After two weeks of deprivation, I would have killed for some Package A at Flying Fin when I got back.

Good things come in small packages, but this package only starts small. The Miso Soup and Edamame are standard, and Flyin Fin builds up from here.

The half-portions of Seaweed Salad and Calamari Salad are sweet little snacks. The calamari is cold and soaked with one of the best marinades I've ever had, and both bites give your appetite a boost.

The Mixed Tempura is a pretty big basket, full of lightly-battered veggies and shrimp. The sweet potato will always be a fave, but they get major props for making all the tempura taste really good... Even the onion is edible.

I shelled out for the Package A because the 26 pieces of Mixed Sashimi are show-stopping. They're so fresh that they taste more sweet than briny, and you never know exactly what you're going to get. The Bluefin tuna is lean but the texture and flavor-burst makes it taste like toro. The salmon is slippery and slides right down, and the Tasmanian salmon is a little richer, delivering some extra oomph. I thought the yellowtail was great, but the baby yellowtail is a whole different ballgame, so impossibly delicate and refined. The halibut knocked it out of the park, and although I don't know what sauce that is, I sure am glad it's there.

The chef slipped me some Mackerel once, and not only was it the first mackerel I didn't hate, it was delicious! It was vinegary but sweet, and for once, it didn't have the smell or aftertaste of a Chinatown sewer. Individual orders of Female Octopus are fragrant and tender, and sometimes you get sizeable Scallops, with a zesty lemon and a yuzu sting.

Witchcraft! What other explanation could there be? An expensively yet fairly priced place that keeps me coming back week after week. It is an addiction that puts me in the poorhouse yet I cannot stop this madness. I am hypnotized by the bluefin, I am a slave to the salmon, I cannot sleep for my love of sashimi. Sorry to the other sushi places in South Bay, but Flyin Fin has me bewitched.

The Weird Stuff - Jinzhou & Dalian, China

I grew up eating the weird stuff, and it never seemed strange to me. But I decided to use this title because so many others still cringe. Well haters are always gonna hate, hate, hate, so I'm just gonna shake it off. And with every bite, I remind myself that they're just missing out.

The Donkey Dumplings sound crude, like it's one step down from horse meat, but in reality, donkey is even better than pork. The ground meat has a coarser texture, but it has all the savor of fatty pork except it's gamier and lean. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little grossed out at first, but this Jinzhou delicacy made an ass out of my apprehensions.

I gained a lot of insight this trip, and maybe the Pig Eye helped. This was once a favorite, but it took 25 years to work up the nerve to try it again. The eye is fatty and almost creamy, adding to the oily goodness of the already delicately melty head and face.

Check out all the glistening fat on the head. Trust me, it's worth a try.

Every part of each animal has a purpose in China, and every little bit serves its purpose well. Beef Tendon is another excellent option among the "weird" meats, soft, smooth, and non-grossly gelatinous when soft-boiled in soy sauce. You can't go wrong with anything over-the-counter.

Pig Ear is becoming quite the trend in American fine-dining, but the Chinese are way ahead of the game. The chewy skin is heavily-sauced, maintaining the full texture of cartilagenous crunch, which U.S. chefs seem hell-bent on hiding. It's also a great contrast to the soft, grainy slices of Liver.

Skin really is a great organ, and Garlic Pork Skin is best served cold. The shreds are delightfully chewy, and the pungent garlic perks it up.

I love my meat, but Squilla is still my favorite seafood. The love-child of shrimp and lobster, the firm, juicy meat, especially when there's a hard stick of roe in the middle, is worth pricking all your fingers while pulling back every painful segment of shell.

I grew up speaking standard Mandarin, so standard that no one can tell where I'm from. The Chinese-American accent certainly contributes to the confusion, but I'm most often told I sound like a Rosetta Stone cassette. Each region has their own accent, dialect, or drawl, and the Dalian dialect is harsher, with a different swing. Spoken mostly by cabbies and sometimes by salesgirls, I have always heard the difference and found it impossible to understand. But this time, for the first time, it started to make sense. I spoke my standard Mandarin and they spoke their Dalian-ese, but it didn't sound so foreign anymore. For the first time, Dalian is starting to feel like home.

San Bao - Dalian, China

San Bao is famous for its classic Chinese porridge, and it just happens to be located two short blocks from my grandma's apartment. I go there for lunch at least once every time I'm in Dalian.

The cabbage and clam Porridge is a smooth suspension, yet you can still feel the friction between each grain of rice. The clams add depth, and the cabbage keeps it fresh.

Porridge also goes well with dim-sumy stuff...just not this dim sum. The Shrimp Dumplings were a bit dry, and in the case of the disastrous Chive Pocket, someone forgot the salt. But the Turnip and Oyster Dumplings were skillfully shredded with a pleasant sting of briny, finely-chopped oysters that they sent my dad into a story that started with "back in my day."

San Bao doesn't make the best seafood, and the dim sum leaves a bit to be desired, but the porridge is pretty perfect. Considering it's only a couple blocks away, it would be cruel to deny myself gruel. Please sir, I want some more.

Szechuan - Dalian, China

One of my favorite Dalian restaurants is in the mall, barely a step outside and barely a step above the food court. Their specialty is Szechuan, the simple, spicy glory of the south.

The clear, cold Mung Bean Noodles are a little less firm than I'd like, but the sauce is right on with a subtle numbing burn.

Sour Plum Juice is the drink to wash it all down. Somehow the touch of acid seems to soothe.

Their Mouth-Watering Chicken is the by far the best. The chicken is cold with a heavy coat and soaked with red-hot chilis. The chicken sits on an equally soaked bed of crunchy cucumber, which is almost as good as the chicken itself.

The Fried Glutinous Rice Cakes are a bland contrast for the intensely spicy food, but I didn't love the texture of these - they were a bit on the mushy-runny side.

I don't see Duck Liver on a lot of menus, and this one was begging to be tried. It turns out to be the non-fatty kind, a finer texture with a more delicate taste than pork, yet just as biliously coarse and dry as you'd expect for foie without the gras.

It's hard to find good Szechuan when you're so far from the south, but mouth-watering chicken is a dish worth trying no matter where you're from. Can you handle the (spicy) pain?

Hot Pot - Dalian, China

I'll never get tired of stir-fried or steamed, but boiled is just another way to savor and salivate.

This is one of Dalian's better hot pot restaurants, specializing in a steaming Fish Hot Pot with broth so flavor-heavy it doubles as a soup.

Their specialty is thin slices of the smoothest, cleanest cuts of silver-skinned fish I've ever seen. The pot is a good size, just begging to be loaded with oysters, mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, and all sorts of leafy, soup-soaking greens.

All the Beer tastes like water, but it goes nicely with the fishy flavors.

You go there for the boiling, but the smoking is not to be missed. The Smoked Chicken is woodsy and brown, thoroughly infused with a dark, heavy wood-chip essence.

The cold Jellyfish slaw sets a new standard. The finely chopped cabbage is blended and seasoned in just the right ratio and works as a contrast for the hot and heavy.

You can't go to Dalian and not try the seafood, and you can't go to China and not try the hot pot. Here's how you try both.

The Nicer Things That Don't Come Cheap - Dalian, China

Street food is great, but let's not forget to indulge in the nicer things from time to time.

And why settle for one when you have the hot plate to rule them all? This seafood platter comes with abalone, shrimp, steamer clams, scallops on the half-shell, and a whole lot of garlic. No special preparation, but good ingredients need very little.

Those sweet little scallops taste as pretty as they look. The garlic bites, but the meat stays delicately soft. What could possibly be better than this little scallop on the half-shell? A giant Scallop on the half-shell! This one also has ginger, scallion, and glass noodles in case you're extra-hungry.

Abalone is the Chinese acai, and sea cucumber has more hype than kale. There are several ways to prepare them, and ginger scallion is one of the best. Abalone is a soft, chewy, and minimally briny. It tastes milky and smooth, like the gustatory version of its mother-of-pearl shell.

Abalone actually tastes good, but Sea Cucumber is valued for its nutrition alone. It's best red-roasted, and when smushed to a little nothing under high pressure, It has the texture of really soft rubber, like if you were to boil a leather shoe, but it's better than non-pressurized, which crunches like a slimy cartilage.

Live Uni isn't a superfood, which is probably why it actually tastes good. The briny roe melts on the tongue after it meshes with a touch of soy sauce and wasabi...if you don't mind spooning around the spikes.

The luxury seafood is great, but sometimes it's nice to keep it simple. Paper-thin slices of Conch stir-fried with strings of scallion is still my classic fave.

Good seafood at a good price is pretty scarce in the states, but you can find it everywhere in Dalian. Even random street vendors sell live shellfish by the pound, and the clams come pretty cheap. We would make some rice and boil or steam them until the shells gape. Plucking the soft meat out of the shells is a dinner that preps itself faster than you can microwave.You can't go to Dalian and not try to seafood.

You'll Be a Lot of Things in China, But Hungry Won't Be One of Them! - Dalian, China

Let's keep going with the street food, progressing from snacks to meals.

A whole Fried Flounder looks pretty exciting. This one is salted just right, with a batter that somehow tastes even better when it's soggy and cold. 

The flounder was great, but these little deep-fried saltfish are exceptional. It's some sort of Chinese "Croaker". Dig in if you don't mind spitting out some bones.

Haven't had enough fish yet? There's always someone drying some outside. Maybe they can spare a slice if you ask them nicely...

There are a lot of great sides to go with the entrees, and fluffy, mantou-dough-like Twisty Bread is always a safe option. These are made plain, but you often find a little scallion within the folds.

Too much dough in twisty bread? Try pulling off a layer of paper-thin Egg Pancake, which can be eaten plain or used as mushu wrapper.

I haven't had Sugar Bread in years, but growing up, this was one of maybe three foods I would eat. A firmer pancake-bread is filled with a layer of melty sugar. The sweet filling adds a layer of luxury, and it somehow complements everything else you eat.

Leaving the streets; even the mall stalls have made-to-order dumplings to blow your mind. 

The classic Three Delights of shrimp, egg, and chives is always a safe option, but the flaky fish filling called "Ba Yu" is a northeastern special and probably my favorite by far.

All that bread and salt will make you thirsty, and there are whole supermarket aisles just for drinks. Restaurants are usually BYOB and not just for alcohol. Exactle what part of the peach is the "sac"? Apparently it's the pulp...I hope it's the pulp.

Not from the streets, but from a random restaurant. I think I ate six in one sitting. These taro-filled Green Tea Cakes are edged with sesame and pan-fried so the green tea is crunchy and the taro is sweet and soft.

I do love the nicer things, but I could probably survive on the cheap stuff forever.