Lunch in Chinatown

Don’t kid yourself. These people eat every bit as much as we do. The difference is, where we go to the Texas Roadhouse and put a big ol’ honkin’ slab of beef up on the plate next to the baked potato and Texas Toast, they have about two dozen little dishes and only take a bite or two out of each one of them.

The quantity of food taken in is identical; only the method of transfer is different.

Our group stopped at a wonderful Chinese Restaurant, as might be expected. Of course, the Gringo’s had no idea what to order, but fortunately it wasn’t a problem – they had already fixed the menu and had food coming out to us.

It’s very cultural here to share food, we learned. We had a go with chopsticks, although most of our group finally resorted to forks and spoons.

The tables, all round, have a big lazy susan in the middle of them. The food is put on this and whirled around both directions to pass things. People pluck out with their chopsticks and put what they want on their plate.

We started with 100 year Egg Porridge.

There were boiled eggs chopped up in Cream of Wheat. They were kinda dark – almost black – colored. Who knows if they were 100 years old. As for anything else we ate – who knows. It was good. It was blissfully non-spicy, especially compared to the Thai food, and we had a good time sharing it with the rest of the group. They were quick to show us how to eat certain things, and we learned about the teapot game.

Apparently, it’s the Chinese Restaurant version of “spin the bottle”. When the lazy susan goes around, if the teapot ends up pointing at you, you’re supposed to eat more food.