Shandong Cuisine

Before I knew it I was in Shandong Province(山东省) once I had awoken from a light slumber. I survived a cramped 7-hour bus ride with nothing to eat but vacuum-sealed dog meat on digestive wheat crackers. As dusk approached the sun was a faint smear of a bloody orange, illuminated through layers of indiscernible cloud and smog. It was that perfect time of day, plenty light out to catch the scene as it quickly glided by.
And by the time we reached Tai'An (泰安) it was night time and the tiny town was all quiet and still. A rather large group of us 老外 went venturing out for some sort of nightlife that was essentially nonexistent. I broke off from the group early on with a few others to eat a few dishes at a dirty open square managed by a street vendor. On miniature stools we ate and played Crazy Eights on a miniature, wobbly table.
Meanwhile, back in our hotel lobby some 10-15 local gangsters were kicking the shit out of one other Chinese guy who rubbed them the wrong way, breaking a plate and an ashtray over his head. All of this was caught on videotape which I watched the following morning over breakfast.
Contrary to the preceding story, I found in general Shandong people were very friendly. I spoke to a few locals here and there as time and opportunity saw fit. Luckily those I did talk to for the most part didn't use their Shandong dialect on me, otherwise it would have been a mess. While the people were seemingly quite friendly, their cuisine was a another story. Confucius as I mentioned earlier is of Shandong and so there is a dish named after him, perhaps the most famous, most expensive. It is called Kong Men Doufu (孔门豆腐), a type of tofu that tastes exactly like a cigarette-smoke filled motel room. The taste captures the very essence of the stale smoke entrenched in the furniture that is preserved over time, the wallpaper and bedsheets of your standard Super 8 motel.
Now I am trying to recall what it was that I ate that tasted like the cadavers in my lab smelled? Shawna and Thuy should know...