Delicious Smoke Shark

Just came back from Taiwan not too long ago. Visiting my parents is my every 6 month ritual. After all, Taiwan is about 18 hours flight from JFK. Having shark is part of this ritual.

The most delicious part of the shark is not its meat, but the stomach and the cartilage bone. This particular store only sells smoke shark, beer and hard liquor. And the patrons are usually night shift (because this store only opens in the day time) taxi drivers (this is easy to see because there are usually some yellow cabs parked outside of the store) and women who work at massage parlors (this is what I think, not confirmed, but from the way they dress and the hairdo) . Don't know why dad found this place. Hummm....

There is a display case in the store front with different part of smoke shark. You can see the stomach part because the color is the whitest and in irregular shape; cartilage bone is a little translucent and the meat is just like shark steak you see at the Whole Food.

Because shark is very lean and does not have much fat, the meat tends to be very dry. Just think of how you cook shark meet, either kebab or steak style. Either way, you put a lot of oil with herb hoping that it turns out to taste better. But this Taiwanese discovered that the best way is to smoke it so that it has the amber color outside with the smokey taste. Same way for the stomach and the cartilage bone (it is so soft, it is even softer than the chicken cartilage). The sauce is the second best part. This secret sauce is soy sauce based with garlic, pepper, and sugar blended together. Seriously this sauce is to die for because soy sauce is just the background, you can definitely taste the sweetness with powerful garlic in it. Then, there is wasabi, shredded ginger and scallion that you eat with the smoke shark. Oh man, I am ready to go back to Taiwan now.