Chinese food

I'm in Singapore and was having lunch at a Chinese restaurant today where my host asked me to choose a pudding. We'd already had a good selection of dim sum so I thought I'd go for something light and opted for the Chinese herbal jelly. I was expecting it to be green. It was black. "What sort of herbs are in this jelly?" I asked. "Oh, there are no herbs in it," my host replied, "It's made from ground turtle shells and is illegal in a lot of countries." I told him that I was on my way to China and he advised me to watch out for exotic meats on the menu, although it is too early in the year for cat and snake stew. The last time he'd been there, he'd gone to a Japanese restaurant where he ate horse sashimi.