The "P" stands for Phony, the "F" for Fake

I had never dined at P.F. Chang's prior to last Wednesday when we gathered to celebrate Kathleen's birthday. My avoidance of the restaurant was deliberate, despite that I was told that the restaurant was good. My reasons were the following:

1. A non-Chinese place serving Chinese food? Can't be good.
2. Pay $10 for Americanized dishes like Sweet and Sour Pork that I can normally get for $5? I'm too cheap for that.
3. A Chinese restaurant that has ambiance and a polite wait staff is automatically suspect.

In honor of Kat, I put aside my reservations and joined the dinner party. Unfortunately, all my assumptions proved correct. How weird is it to order Broccoli Beef from a white woman? I should be giving my order to a Chinese man with slicked back hair, who, while writing, is yelling at the bus boy to get more tea for the table.

The food itself was okay at best. I could probably get the same quality of food at a Chinese fast food place, $3.99 for 3 dishes plus rice and noodles. My favorite quote of the night was from Tina, who after trying a dish exclaimed, "WHAT AM I EATING??" It turned out to be Chicken with Mangos. Maybe it's a Thai dish? It's certainly not Chinese.

The clincher was the rice. It was white rice. And by white, I mean Uncle Ben's rice. The rice of white America. Not sticky in any way. Not soft and chewy. I'm not saying that Uncle Ben's is bad rice (though I never eat it). I'm saying how hard is it to get the rice correct if you claim to serve Asian food.

But maybe I'm looking at this ALL wrong. I'm comparing authentic Chinese food, eaten at Chinese restaurants and served by Chinese to a restaurant that has the non-Chinese customer in mind. Maybe it's for those who aren't yet prepared to try chicken's feet or sea cucumbers. Maybe it's a good stepping stone to more adventurous food, after graduating from orange chicken and ma-po-tofu.

My Guilty Conscience

I think hybrid cars are great. I recycle bottles and cans. I'm against drilling in Alaska. I try to minimize the amount of carbon dioxide I exhale. But by no means do I consider myself a tree-hugger. I enjoy long, hot showers. My job requires me to kill trees by printing massive loads of crap. I wash my car and watch the oily suds collect in the gutter knowing they'll end up in a storm drain.

One of the things that makes me feel guiltier than most is Shark Fin Soup. It's considered a luxury dish in Chinese cuisine and possibly other Asian cultures. It's an expensive delicacy, a sign of affluence and usually saved for special occasions. The Sharks Fin appears in the soup as thin, gelatinous shreds that don't really have a taste, but have an interesting texture to them, almost crunchy.

The environmental problem with the soup is that sharks are now being overly hunted for their fins. Fishermen can demand a high price for the delicacy. It's also common that the sharks are hunted for the sole purpose of their fins, their bleeding bodies dumped back into the water left to die. With fewer sharks in the water, the ecological balance of the oceans is disrupted, which may lead to unforeseen consequences in the future.

Okay, enough lecturing. So, last night, my extended family celebrated Chinese New Year a week early, dining at a popular Cantonese style restaurant in Rowland Heights. As is typical, the parents order and the kids just eat whatever comes to the table. Because it was a special occasion, the soup that was ordered was Shark Fin.

As bowls of the steaming liquid were passed around, I had a brief second of internal conflict, should or shouldn't I? Will my one bowl of soup make a difference? Would my protest stop my other family members from ordering it in the future?

I then raised my soup to my lips and drank.

After we had finished eating, I peeked a glance at the bill. $50. The cost of the soup. Is the life of a shark and the well-being of the oceans worth that amount?

My conscience is guilty.

Breakfast of Champions

It's rather difficult to explain to someone what exactly Chinese breakfast is.

"Instead of milk, you drink soy milk and you can have it salty or sweet."
"Salty or sweet?"
"Then there's these things called Oil Sticks that you dip into your soy milk."
"Oil Sticks?"
"Yeah, they're like doughnuts. And sometimes you put the Oil Sticks inside a flat bread thing covered in sesame and eat it together."
"So you put a doughnut between bread? Bread in bread?"
"Well....yeah."

It's something you have to experience to truly understand how good Chinese breakfast is. Technically, it's Taiwanese, but it's all Chinese right? :-)

I haven't had much exposure to true authentic Chinese breakfast. I've never been to Taiwan where vendors make the foods fresh on the streets and now my parents only go as far as Ranch 99 in Artesia to get breakfast. I considered the Ranch 99's quality to be decent, but apparently, I was wrong.

In order to show me Chinese breakfast of acceptable quality, Doris took me to a place in San Gabriel, about 25 miles from Cerritos, called Yong He. It was almost noon by the time we got there and we still had to wait around for 25 minutes before we got seated. In typical fashion, I was famished and thus cranky, which was made worse by the poor service that is standard of a Chinese restaurant. But once the food came, all offenses were forgotten.

Since we normally don't get Chinese breakfast all that often, we decided to order a lot of food to share, figuring we could take the leftovers home. We order a sweet Do Jiang, a Shao Bing Yo Tiao, a Dan Bing, a Fan Tuan and a Luo Bo Si Bing (descriptions to follow). We finished it ALL between the two of us. No leftovers to take home because it was all in our bellies. I had so much that seven hours later at dinner, I still wasn't hungry yet. What made it even better was all that food only came out to $8.47!! Dirt cheap!

[Do Jiang] Literal translation: bean juice. Also known as soy milk. It can be served hot or cold, salty or sweet. The sweet just has sugar added while the salty has vinegar, which curdles the milk, then soy sauce, dried shredded pork, green onions and pieces of Yo Tiao are added. I personally like the sweet; I'm not a big fan of the salty.

[Shao Bing] Literally: Roasted Flat Bread. It's a flat bread that's served toasted and crunchy on the sesame-covered oustide with a soft, flaky interior. It's normally split open and filled with meat, egg, Yo Tiao and other yummies. This place is known for their Shao Bing and rightly so. I think it was the best I've ever had.

[Yo Tiao] Literally: Oil Stick. It's a long piece of fried dough that's crunchy yet still slightly soft on the inside. It's great when dipped into the Do Jiang. We had ours inside our Shao Bing.

[Dan Bing] Literally: Egg Pancake. That's basically what it is: eggs cooked with scallions on top of a thin chewy flour pancake. It's folded up and cut into a few pieces.

[Fan Tuan] Literally: Rice Roll Up. Made with sweet, sticky rice, it's a rice roll, with the inside stuffed with a Yo Tiao, dried shredded pork and pickled vegetables. It's a great on-the-go food.

[Luo Bo Si Bing] Literally: Shredded Turnip Bun. It's a flaky pastry filled with salty shredded daikon. Yum.

There's a bunch of other Chinese breakfast foods that I haven't mentioned, but I'll save those for another day (after another trip to San Gabriel!!). While I want to know how good it is in Taiwan, I almost don't, because then nothing in the States will ever compare. Doris offered to pimp me out to her uncle who knows how to make all these things so I could learn. Maybe that's not such a bad idea. :-)

Countdown: Commenced

It's already 2006. When the hell did that happen??

It's going to be an exciting year; I can feel it. It almost seems like the last three years have been preparing me for this one upcoming. I finally feel ready, as if I'm on the launching pad, about to be hurled into a new world.

Things to come: a new address to furnish; new places to see; new relationships to explore; a new job to challenge me; new restaurants to taste.

That is not to say that I'm leaving everything I have behind. It is because of my experiences and the lessons learned over the last three years that I am now prepared to venture forth. My job that challenged me when I did not believe I was ready. My home that has sheltered me through difficult times. But most of all, it is because of my friends and family. These are the relationships that I hope will to continue to grow and flourish, no matter what the distance.

The countdown has now begun.