Squab: Apparently nothing to squack about

This past weekend, I finally got to try out a restaurant I have been hearing a lot about: Chau Chow City.


The main appeal of Chau Chow's is that it is until 4 am, which is good after a night out. We had gone out to Ned Devine's near Faneuil Hall then took the walk to China Town. J. ordered some normal things: vegetable lo mein and sesame chicken. The lo mein was good, on the greasier side, and was made with thinner pasta than usual, but overall not too shabby. The sesame chicken was nice and saucy, the chicken was a bit fatty.

Jon, on the other hand decided to take the road less travelled by. As he perused the menu he asked me, "What is squab," I said it was some form of little bird. So, he ordered squab. The waiter seemed a little surprised, and asked if he only wanted one squab. We stuck with one.

The squab came out- (at the time I did not realize the importance of the squab, and it was 3 am, and a long night, so I neglected to take pictures.) it was very weird looking. Very boney, and dark brown. The plate is was on was nicely decoratated with some large flower decoration, presumably to distract from the squab's appearance.

J and J both hesitantly tried the squab... both with the same reaction: Squab was the worst food they had ever tasted. The rest of the night was spent coming up with comparisons to what squab tasted like, the general consensus was, "Pigeon that had been raised its whole like of a diet of sewage."

Despite this, Jon managed to finish his whole plate of Squab! What a champ! Admittedly it was very boney, and not much actual meat to eat.

Here is a close up of the creepiness that was the squab:

I refused to try the squab based on the very bad reviews, and the fact that I am still not entirely comfortable with eating any meat-- let alone "sewage fed poultry" meat. I did ask the waiter what exactly squab was, to which he replied "Baby Chicken."

Upon further research, most evidence points to the fact that squab is in fact, baby pigeon, so their description was not very far off in regards to the fact that it tasted like a pigeon.

According to another source, you are actually supposed to eat the entire squab, including the bones, in which case, a lot of squab was wasted that night.

Jon was very proud of himself, and said, "Now, I can say I have tried squab."


I, cannot make that claim in life yet.