I mentioned in my post about Monday's dinner at a student's home that I sampled a local bitter melon-infused beer. Having had only a sip, I zeroed in for a closer look this evening, purchasing a whole bottle to swig with my dinner.
As you can see the color is a limish-green in color. The bitter melon indeed lent itself to an unsurprisingly light, yet bitter taste. As I have mentioned before, Chinese beer is watery to say the least, and any flavor adopted usually dominates. The wheat beer overwhelms you with the smell of wheat; the fruit beer tastes like soda. But the bitter melon tread a subtle line; only the after taste truly betrayed the actual melon flavor.
My first week in Jiujiang, I was served cold bitter melon sauteed with chiles and garlic each morning with breakfast! Do you like bitter melon? I admit that I do.
Posted by Astrid at November 10, 2004 08:04 AM