Mark Thorson > wrote in :

> I think the proprietors must
> have been from rural China or someplace where it is
> considered perfectly normal to serve a chicken dish
> in which the chicken has been hacked up with a cleaver,
> no attempt has been made at deboning, and it's left to
> the customer to pick out the meat --

I used to eat at a place like that in Isleton, CA back in the 80s. They had
the best food I have ever eaten. Elderly Chinese couple ran the place.

There was a more glitzy place up the street where the food wasn't nearly as
good. Once, the proprietor of that place ran out into the street to tell me
"I saw her getting food out of our garbage!" Okay.

These people understood how to use black beans in Chinese cooking.
Everything they served was smoky with the black beans. The best Chinese
food I ever ate.

Hell, when I eat at home, I may have to extract the chicken from the bone
myself. It's home cooking.