Fish Maw Soup and Ox Tongue in Chicago



A friend of mine introduced me to a small Chinese restaurant in Chinatown Chicago call Ken Kee.  What interest me about this place is the fish maw soup.  Fish maw is the air bladder of the fish which helps it maintain it's posture and conserves it's energy during high current waters.  The air bladder also helps the fish resonate sounds to help them communicate with one another.

Fish maw soup traditionally consist of chicken broth as the base and corn starch which acts as a thickening agent.  The air bladder is dried up to be preserved for market sale then can be reanimated by soaking it in water for a few hours or more until it's completely soft.  It's then hacked up into reasonable bite size portions and thrown into the pot with all sorts of vegetables, herbs, spices and any kind of meat product your heart desires.  A few eggs are usually added to give it the egg drop soup texture.  

The fish maw has no flavor whatsoever and texturally, it's really wrong.  It has a slimy texture that slides down your throat effortlessly.  It's going inherit the taste of any ingredients you put in the soup.  Despite the flavorful broth, the horrific texture of the fish maw was still there.    



ox-tail curry

I did ordered other bizarre dishes to feed my curiosity.  I called upon the ox tongue curry with bell peppers and stir fry frog legs with water cress and garlic.  The tongue can be the most flavorful and tender cuts of the critter if it's done right.  In this case the tongue didn't seem like it was clean properly so it had a very gamy taste to it and also a strong lingering oder after each bite.  

The stir fry frog legs were okay but than again I'm not a fan of them at all, and no, they don't taste like chicken.  If they are fresh and not frozen, they'll actually have a swampy seafood taste to it but with the texture of half chicken, half fish.  No matter what Chinese restaurant I've visited, the water cress cooked in garlic never disappoint so i wasn't reluctant to navigate around the frog legs and steal away all the veggies.  There's other Chinese dishes I  had before that I loved that's just like any other Chinese restaurants.

http://chicago.menupages.com/restaurants/ken-kee-restaurant/