Text 17702, 124 rader
Skriven 2014-10-03 21:16:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Chinese food 'venture 55
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So it was time to dine with my brother, and he did
the I don't care where we go, it's your choice game -
the usual result is I suggest something, and we don't
end up going there because it's too expensive or I
don't like that kind of food, or whatever. This time
I suggested Popeye's or Chinese, confident that he'd
choose the former (I'd have been happy with either),
but he surprised me by going for Chinese, so we ended
up at Seven Seas, a reliable not-too-costly place
where the seafood is good, especially the crustaceans.
He of course dislikes crustaceans and hates shrimp,
so that puts a damper on things.

As we walked in he reminded me that as he had had
lunch only 7 hours before, he wasn't hungry and would
get just an appetizer and maybe mooch off a spoonful
or two of whatever I got. So we planned the following.

We would get two appetizers, and I would get a main
course and rice. Fine. Rub #1. Would I be inclined to
taste his appetizer? Sure. Oh, then we need to get two
orders. Fine. So this was the plan, conveyed with much
difficulty to the waitress, who spoke scanty English.
As usually happens, between her imperfect command of
my language and my terrible command of hers, we came
to some kind of understanding.

For me, a tall can of Sapporo; for the kid, water
("Chungguo pi jiu? Bu shi, Erbun. Ah, Erbun).

For me, turnip cake; for him a double pot stickers.
And bring the hot oil.

Followed by cilantro lamb (also his choice, even though
he was going to have just a spoonful).

No tea.

This all came in due course, with a slight delay when
the hot sauce was sent to another table by mistake.

The beer, with a big IMPORTED on the can, of course
comes from Canada. It was okay, but I'd originally
ordered the Brooklyn Porter, only after some time the
waitress came back with the news of "no mo draf." I
could easily have socked down three of the things at
22 oz each.

Turnip cake was gooier than I expected but had been
fried very hot in lots of oil, so the surfaces were
pretty brown and crisp. After the hot stuff came by,
it was very good, and Jonathan got a bite (and a
second, ...) and pronounced it good. I didn't tell
him that in addition to the chopped ham it also had
chopped died shrimp in it (in his case at least, what
he doesn't know won't hurt him).

While I savored my 5 oz of turnip cake, I watched the
kid motor through 6 enormous (2 oz each) guo teh and
then pause quizzically as I told him to save one. You
haven't had one? He hadn't noticed. Honorably, though,
he saved the last two for me. He'd liked them, saying
that the filling was very good, very porky. It in fact
was a big ounce lump of pork with a little MSG but no
ginger and hardly any other flavoring, just a scanty
strewing of something green (supposed to be scallion).
I expect maybe 80 pork and 15 scallion, plus ginger
and garlic and soy and maybe a touch of oyster sauce
or something the factory, I mean chef, adds to make
it his own. For me, these really needed that hot oil,
and I polished the little bowl off rapidly, between
the unnaturally blandish pot stickers and the naturally
blandish turnip cake. One other thing, the more refined
turnip cake I'm used to is made with rice flour and
finely minced luobo (Chinese version of daikon); this
had thin strips of the vegetable, rather peculiar.

The main dish tasted, thankfully, more of cumin and
soy than of cilantro, which appeared almost exclusively
in the form of stems, the leaves apparently having been
used for something else or perhaps reserved for more
eminent customers. Also about half a sliced jalapeno.
It was decent, the barely perceptible heat bespeaking
a Cantonese in the kitchen. Jonathan tasted it and
decreed it way too spicy, and he wanted to call the
fire department (I believe only metaphorically). So
he helped himself to my rice - not a great tragedy, as
I thought the dish extremely mildly heated, fairly mild
in the coriander department, but with a pretty good hit
of cumin. I ate at my normal pace; he ate at his; next
thing I knew, the dish was gone - I had maybe my
nutritionally appropriate hundred grams of it, he got
the rest. Maybe his body-mass index really is over 29.

Orange slices (half an orange) and fortune cookies came
with the bill. He appropriated the former and pushed
the latter away. I gave him a look, so he ceded the
seediest orange slices to me and took one of the fortune
cookies. His fortune exhorted him to better his life or
something like that; mine said that I would soon have
abundant good luch. I hope that's the same as good luck.

We actually split the bill this time.

It was quite moist when we left, and when we got back
to the house, I looked for something to eat, as I was
still rather hungry. I found another bar of Ghirardelli
72, to which Jonathan exclaimed Chocolate! but then
remembered that chocolate now (according to him) gives
him heart problems.

Back in my room I found a little hotel mouthwash bottle
with Glenlivet in it, from the old days when the TSA
would confiscate any nonmedicinal or nonhygiene liquids
even if they were in a 3 oz or less container. That had
to have been four or five years ago, and I was afraid
that it would taste like plastic. No, it tasted like
minty fresh mouthwash, only boozier, and I was happy
about that. So it's now Yom Kippur, and to properly
celebrate it one should not eat or drink, but, what the
hey, I'm not Jewish.
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