As alluded to in yesterday's post, last night we went out for my grandmother's birthday. There's this Chinese restaurant in Monterey Park that she loves, so whenever she gets to pick the restaurant, that's the place of her choosing. Having been to this place (which I have decided against naming in the legal interests of MyTeemingBrain.blogspot.com), I was not really expecting great things.
Due to my sensitive palate and appreciation of fine dining, I consider myself something of a foodie, but not of the snobbish I-won't-touch-that-foie-gras-unless-it's-made-of-whole-liver-lobes-and-the-ducks-from-which-it-was-made-were-free-range-organic-corn-fed variety. My friend Ben likes to accuse me being an "elitist," but when it comes to eating Chinese food, or perhaps food in general, it is he who brings his snooty, exacting standards to bear on whatever meal is placed before him. While several other factors (such as having lived in China for a year, and working in Hacienda/Rowland Heights) may have contributed in part to my expectations for Chinese food, I think in large part they stem from Ben's influence. That being said, I don't think I ask too much. (For example, I like the orange chicken and chicken with mushroom at Panda Express, which is clearly not a vendor of authentic Chinese cuisine.) But it appears as though my grandmother's favorite restaurant goes out of its way to be as spurious as possible.
Even before being seated, one can tell that this place is of dubious authenticity. The host was Hispanic. I have nothing against Hispanics in general, but hello! In Monterey Park, which is awash with cheap Chinese labor, finding a Chinese host shouldn't be a big problem. In fact, not one of the staff appeared to be of Asian descent.
And this leads to the second problem: there are no English speakers at this particular establishment. Instead of being greeted with the customary indifferent "几位?" ("How many people?" in Chinese), we heard "How many people?" in English. This second grievance may seem rather minor, especially given that I am actually considerably more fluent in English than in Chinese, but I know the names of Chinese dishes in Chinese, and they are not all easy to explain—especially things like Chinese vegetables. ("Well, it's a green, leafy vegetable with a long, slender stalk..." How many vegetables adhere to those parameters?!?)
I suppose this last complaint really didn't matter too much, since the English-only menu had a pretty sparse offering, and ordering anything not listed seemed pretty futile. But herein lay another problem: the English-only menu. Couldn't they at least print some Chinese next to the English names of the dishes for a dash of verisimilitude?
The lack of Chinese speaking staff and a Chinese menu led to yet another indication that this place was not the real deal: lack of Chinese clientele. (Are you starting to see how alot of these factors are inter-related?) Looking around the restaurant, which, with only about five other parties besides our, seemed rather empty, I noticed not one other Asian group. Again, given location of this place, I would have expected that at least a few more customers from the far East in the mix.
Ok, so now I've been greeted in English, seated by the Latino host, given an English-only menu and deprived of the company of Chinese dining companions. As the place settings are set before me...you guessed it: FORKS! Forks, not one pair of chopsticks, and we hadn't even requested forks. They just gave them to us. Forks! Not to belabor a point that speaks volumes for itself, but I think this one actually influences the quality of the dining experience. How can you eat Chinese food with a fork? Somewhere in my hand-brain interface, alarm bells are exploding in a chorus of outrage. Even if my tastebuds are telling my parieto-temporal-occipital cortex "it's Chinese food, and it's fantastic!", my hand is protesting, "no, I'm holding a fork, not chopsticks: definitely not Chinese food."
Okay, I am somthing of a tea snob, so I always like to see what's being served with my meal. (Because I don't drink alcohol, I am denied the joys of the sommelier, so I indulge my epicurean tendencies by seeing which teas are best paried with which meals.) The tea here? Not 人参乌龙, not 桂花乌龙，not even 茉莉花. This stuff was English breakfast tea. Don't get me wrong, I am really fond of English breakfast tea. It's great with an English breakfast, it's very good for high tea, and it can be used to produce a wonderful iced milk tea. But it is not the ideal compliment for a Chinese dinner, even a pseudo-Chinese dinner.
I have to concede that the spicy eggplant was pretty good, but the steamed fish was dubious at best. It lacked enough flavor, and something about it didn't give it that super fresh quality I've come to expect from Chinese places. (Note: they don't have the fish tanks full of live fare awaiting their consumption here, which is probably an indicator that the fish actually was not fresh.) It needed more ginger, more soy sauce, more scallions, more freshness. I could go on about the food, but I think the reader can garner the general idea of how most of the dishes turned out based on the ambiance.
But the biggest indicator of the pseudo-Sino nature of this place was the fact that the bill was $20 off—in our favor! A) What kind of Chinese person can't do basic arithmetic; B) what kind of Chinese person would ever, ever give up $20, even accidentally? (My parents corrected the error by adding $20 to the tip, but still...)
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2 comments:
How am I snooty about Chinese food? You don't have to be Chinese to see that Panda Express isn't great Chinese food. I'm sure many a white person would be able to make that distinction.
Beyond the obvious (like Panda Express), I think Ben applies a fairly rigorous standard for Chinese food (it's a good thing, not an insult!) Perhaps the word "snooty" was overstating things, but we here at myteemingbrain stand by the assertion that Ben is not easily satisfied in the Zhongguo cai department. (We will stand by it until he sues us for defamation.)
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