Real Chinese Food
I love real Chinese food.
Not that fake stuff you get from Panda Express. Or China Wonderful Palace. Or Exquisite Jade Pagoda. Or whatever restaurant with a name cobbled together from an adjective plus a Chinese-sounding adjective plus some vaguely Oriental structure.
I'm talking the stuff that's gooey and slimy and crunchy and pungent and spicy all in the same bite. Tonight we went to Restaurant Peony in Oakland's Chinatown, which is the formal Chinese restaurant that I basically grew up on. I haven't had a decent Chinese meal since, well, since I was in New York for Pride and went with my friend Margaret and her family to "the duck place" in Queens. I have yet to explore Boston's Chinese meal options since my roommates are such big fans of dining out, not to mention dining out on mysterious ingredients. But, coming home, I'm always assured of good Chinese food sometime, somewhere. Tonight's dinner included a spinach, carrot, and pork soup; sauteed watercress greens in fermented fish sauce and chili peppers; "white-chopped" chicken; salt-and-pepper sea bass; egg whites stir fried with fish bellies; and a platter of barbecued pork, roast pork, and jellyfish strips. You know a Chinese restaurant's authentic when people around you are shoveling rice into their mouths with their chopsticks; none of this fork-it-off-the-plate-in-clumps silliness.
Tonight also happened to be something of a talent show, because apparently the Yip/Wong Family Association of Oakland was hosting the Wong Family Association from Los Angeles. And, of course, at such banquets you must have karaoke. As luck would have it, they started singing as soon as we started eating. The sound is indescriable, in a terrifying and results-in-indigestion sort of way. My father and I couldn't help trading glances, and, at one point, a lady's Mandarin interpretation actually put such a look of simultaneous puzzlement, fright, and disgust on my father's face that my normally taciturn mother choked on her food in laughter.
In any case, I love Chinese restaurants.
Not that fake stuff you get from Panda Express. Or China Wonderful Palace. Or Exquisite Jade Pagoda. Or whatever restaurant with a name cobbled together from an adjective plus a Chinese-sounding adjective plus some vaguely Oriental structure.
I'm talking the stuff that's gooey and slimy and crunchy and pungent and spicy all in the same bite. Tonight we went to Restaurant Peony in Oakland's Chinatown, which is the formal Chinese restaurant that I basically grew up on. I haven't had a decent Chinese meal since, well, since I was in New York for Pride and went with my friend Margaret and her family to "the duck place" in Queens. I have yet to explore Boston's Chinese meal options since my roommates are such big fans of dining out, not to mention dining out on mysterious ingredients. But, coming home, I'm always assured of good Chinese food sometime, somewhere. Tonight's dinner included a spinach, carrot, and pork soup; sauteed watercress greens in fermented fish sauce and chili peppers; "white-chopped" chicken; salt-and-pepper sea bass; egg whites stir fried with fish bellies; and a platter of barbecued pork, roast pork, and jellyfish strips. You know a Chinese restaurant's authentic when people around you are shoveling rice into their mouths with their chopsticks; none of this fork-it-off-the-plate-in-clumps silliness.
Tonight also happened to be something of a talent show, because apparently the Yip/Wong Family Association of Oakland was hosting the Wong Family Association from Los Angeles. And, of course, at such banquets you must have karaoke. As luck would have it, they started singing as soon as we started eating. The sound is indescriable, in a terrifying and results-in-indigestion sort of way. My father and I couldn't help trading glances, and, at one point, a lady's Mandarin interpretation actually put such a look of simultaneous puzzlement, fright, and disgust on my father's face that my normally taciturn mother choked on her food in laughter.
In any case, I love Chinese restaurants.
posted by K. Ian Shin | 11:37 PM
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