A Little Something About My Favorite Topic

And what might that me, you ask? It shouldn't be that hard to guess - the clatter of pots, the smell of oil frying, the din of a well-packed restaurant all inducing your mouth to begin salivating. It might not count as a heavenly experience to an American used to impeccably clean restaurants and service that introduces themselves with their name and a smile, but here, and for me, it's all about the taste. Quality environment? Not important. Cleanliness? Not important. Amazing service? Not important. Being able to read the menu? Not important.

It's really truly all about taste (aided, without a doubt, by a healthy dose of monosodium glutamate). Sometimes the menus have pictures, usually I know what kind of meat to expect, but even when I pick at random off of a list of Chinese characters I can only read a quarter of, at these home style little food shops, pretty much everything is good. I've ordered noodle soup that surprisingly had tomatoes (those of you who know me well will be shocked to know that I actually quite liked it), yams (according to the menu) that were actually bamboo shoots and vegetables I don't even remotely recognize the name of. We've ordered things that are "exploding" according to their English translations and played the point and order game with street vendors. Granted sometimes you'll get something more oily than you expected, a different color than you expected, and something with mushrooms, but it's all part of the adventure. It's about how loud you can shout "fu wu yuan" to the waiter/waitress to get their attention (服务员), it's about tracking down the places that offer free tea, and it's about being stuffed when you leave the table, having realized only at that moment when it is too late that you have officially eaten far more than you should have (which is, of course, not to say that it wasn't completely worth it, because 99% of the time, it is).

And having pretty officially made friends with only people who share my love (if not to the same degree) of Chinese eggplant, the only thing left to do is learn how to make it myself. That story of that adventure will follow later (but do know that the first step has been taken - I have two pots, a cutting board, a cleaver, paring knife, two bowls, and of course, some chopsticks).