Me vs. Slippery Foods
After reaching my threshold of convenience store packaged jiaozi and noodles, I decided to walk around tonight and order from one of many 'xiao chi,' small family-run restaurants, of which you can easily find 5 or 6 within a single block, if not more. The grand thing about going out with people to lunch, besides the jovial atmosphere and company, is that I get to add a few new places every week to my restaurant stash. That is, I know what is served, and where to go, so I don't stand in front of the menu for a year trying to translate while the cooks irritatingly look at me.
Today I went to a place close to the dorm where we ate last week. They happened to have a hard copy of an English menu when we went the first time, and I kept it, taking it home and writing the pinyin for characters I didn't know. Outside of my passport, it's the most important and cherished piece of paper I have. Tonight I brought it with me so I could order quickly.
Upon my arrival, one of the boys who worked there (in his 20s, probably the son of the owner) rushed over to get an English menu to give to me, while I already had one in my hand. He reached out to hand it to me, and then I showed him mine, saying, "Wo yijing you yi ge" (I already have one). He and the cooks thought that was quite humorous, so I won some potential points, which is always good when a mountain of indecipherable scripture is standing in between you and sustenance.
I ended up ordering some seaweed and the Chunghua meatballs, which are apparently pretty famous. They contain pork and bamboo shallots, covered with that to-be-determined gelatinous carbohydrate that I encountered my first week. Anyhou, I've gotten really good with chopsticks--I mean, really good--but those slimy textures still are my undoing. For every ten attempts, I might stick one. And wooden chopsticks are totally the way to go, because they absorb the juices and provide more grip. While they are often seen as not as classy and are only served in 'to go' orders, the nice, shiny, coated restaurant ones are horrible because I can't grab anything long enough to eat it. I had such an experience my first actual night here when I went to dinner with the Yus and their respective labs, and all I really ate were buns or soft-sided appetizers because I could stab them and then plop them on my plate.
And believe it or not, I have witnessed the consumption of a fried chicken leg with chopsticks, as well as thin pork chops in the traditional Chinese lunchboxes. While I am good, I am not in that league yet. If I am presented with such a situation, my strategy has been to go veg for that meal, or when nobody is looking, grab the meat in question with my hands and take a big bite really fast. So far I've done this sparingly, but as far as I know, my stealth has paid off.
On another note, in an effort to stay updated with goings on of the world in addition to the Israeli-Hezbollah crisis, I've been actively checking CNN.com for developments. In doing so, I came across this article today by one of my heroes, Christiane Amanpour, and it reminds me and absolutely reinforces why I want to do what I want to do.
Today I went to a place close to the dorm where we ate last week. They happened to have a hard copy of an English menu when we went the first time, and I kept it, taking it home and writing the pinyin for characters I didn't know. Outside of my passport, it's the most important and cherished piece of paper I have. Tonight I brought it with me so I could order quickly.
Upon my arrival, one of the boys who worked there (in his 20s, probably the son of the owner) rushed over to get an English menu to give to me, while I already had one in my hand. He reached out to hand it to me, and then I showed him mine, saying, "Wo yijing you yi ge" (I already have one). He and the cooks thought that was quite humorous, so I won some potential points, which is always good when a mountain of indecipherable scripture is standing in between you and sustenance.
I ended up ordering some seaweed and the Chunghua meatballs, which are apparently pretty famous. They contain pork and bamboo shallots, covered with that to-be-determined gelatinous carbohydrate that I encountered my first week. Anyhou, I've gotten really good with chopsticks--I mean, really good--but those slimy textures still are my undoing. For every ten attempts, I might stick one. And wooden chopsticks are totally the way to go, because they absorb the juices and provide more grip. While they are often seen as not as classy and are only served in 'to go' orders, the nice, shiny, coated restaurant ones are horrible because I can't grab anything long enough to eat it. I had such an experience my first actual night here when I went to dinner with the Yus and their respective labs, and all I really ate were buns or soft-sided appetizers because I could stab them and then plop them on my plate.
And believe it or not, I have witnessed the consumption of a fried chicken leg with chopsticks, as well as thin pork chops in the traditional Chinese lunchboxes. While I am good, I am not in that league yet. If I am presented with such a situation, my strategy has been to go veg for that meal, or when nobody is looking, grab the meat in question with my hands and take a big bite really fast. So far I've done this sparingly, but as far as I know, my stealth has paid off.
On another note, in an effort to stay updated with goings on of the world in addition to the Israeli-Hezbollah crisis, I've been actively checking CNN.com for developments. In doing so, I came across this article today by one of my heroes, Christiane Amanpour, and it reminds me and absolutely reinforces why I want to do what I want to do.
posted by Shannon @ 8:21 PM
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