Duck Tongues in XO Sauce

Duck Tongues in XO Sauce
Originally uploaded by thegreatplotnik.

Yesterday, Plotnik had to do something he found despicable. His restaurant editor at work gave him an assignment, and the editor is new, which means Plot cannot turn down any request, no matter how asinine.

Plotnik works for an online entertainment giant who once wished to swallow the world. When that failed, they decided to become "hip." The closest they ever get is "cute." Most often they are "morons."

The company has decided to run a photo series on Scary Food. By 'scary food' they mean any dish that their target audience, white, 14-year-old suburban pre-diabetic computer potatoes, would find yukky. This includes anything at all ethnic, especially if it involves innards and doesn't come with fries.

Plotnik isn't crazy about innards either, but ho freaking hum.

His new restaurant editor asked him to go to a famous Chinese restaurant and order both Duck Tongues in XO Sauce and Deep Fried Whole Frog, take pictures of the dishes, and leave.

Friends, The Great Plotnik loves food and he takes his job seriously. He was not looking forward to taking pictures of a restaurant's creation in order for his boss's boss's boss in Virginia to get a few "laughs" so he could feel "hip." Plot therefore insisted that the company allow him to write the 40 word-max blurb that would accompany the photo.

Which he did. You are looking at the duck tongues in XO Sauce. They were fresh out of frog.

Plotnik sat down to write the blurb. Here is the first one that popped in to his head:

"Bet you didn't know ducks had tongues, didya? Well, the Chinese eat 'em, sauteed in a sauce that would burn the dick off a dog. They eat dogs too, by the way, oh no, that's someone else."

He figured they'd like that one, so he wrote another one:

"Colonel Sanders's entire arsenal of secret herbs and spices couldn't make it any easier to gag down a duck's tongue, unless one of those spices was WD-40. It feels like you're eating your own finger, if your finger came with snow peas."

Plot was really getting warmed up now. He dashed out another:

"Don't you just "hate" it when Mom and Dad take you out to "try" other "foods" in a "restaurant" when all you want is a burger, fries and a few hits of "meth?"

Then Plot thought: Do you want to keep working? Do you like reviewing restaurants, theater, museums, city events? Do you like free tickets to shows, free food, pura vida?

So here is what he turned in:

"Duck tongue is small and bony, more like a chicken foot than a fleshy beef tongue. You can't do much with Koi Palace's Duck Tongues in XO Sauce except pop 'em in your mouth and suck off the delicious, gingery sauce."