Random nuts

Dinner tonight in Shanghai is at a Beatles inspired Japanese bistro in the French concession.

Imagine ‘I am the walrus,…’ on the tannoy, Chinese waitresses in Japanese schoolgirl uniforms, all in a Balinese inspired timber pavilion housed in a 150 year old French colonial number.

To my delight they have given me a nut that I have never seen before.

It looks like a cross between a chestnut and a pistachio and tastes nothing like either of them.

Roasted and salted the unexpectedly yellow interior has the consistency of a friable over cooked mussel and a neutral taste with a bitter high note.

I ordered blindly so I have no idea what they call them. Google doesn’t exist here and I am not chasing these things down on Bing.

Life is too short for that shit.

Oh and the food was fantastic. Better than any Japanese I have had in Australia.