Shopping for fish

We went to Chinatown in Chicago today! Our tummies are very satisfied now. Our fridge is stocked up with char siew paos.

And I have a $25 grouper in my fridge.

I had no idea that a fish can be sooooo expensive here! We were at the Asian supermarket, where they sell all sorts of fresh meats: live fish in tanks, fresh meat displayed on ice, much like a wet market. They even sell tortoise there, both alive and dead. Quite a sad sight.

It is really hard to find fresh fish where we live, so we thought we should buy some back. I read through the list of fish (in Chinese) on the poster, conveniently disregarding the ones that I don't know how to read. And then, I found a familiar name: Shi2 ban1. So I thought, well, let's get that.

The uncle behind the counter went to grab a net (and that was when I realised we were actually going to buy a live fish), and dipped it into the fish tank to grab the unlucky fellow who failed to escape from the deadly net. He was pretty quick. The poor fish struggled around for a few seconds. The uncle slammed it with a hammer (ya, there is a hammer for the purpose of slamming fish), once, and then it was motionless.

I felt a strange sense of guilt, but not for too long. I will not like to see my food being killed in front of me ever again though.

We shall cook the grouper tomorrow. Hopefully it will be decently delicious, so that the $25 is worth it, and the poor fish wouldn't have died for nothing.

Sorry fish.