The Foodie Triad Strikes Again

In the two weeks since I've been back from Lhasa, food has essentially dictated my life. It did so before as well, but now we're all planning out meals days ahead of time, savoring them and purposely ordering more than normal portions, and then gloriously reliving them for days to come.

Our final days in Lhasa were a flurry of final meals. We returned to our favorite restaurants and ordered meals that could easily feed more than 5 people. My final 48 hours in Tibet, I was never hungry, even before a meal. Fantastic! Here are some of the highlights:

A Nepali curry spread:



Thick sauces, heavy spices, multi-dimensional taste. The highlight was the Malai Kofta, potatoes stuffed with cheese, fried, and topped with a heavy, creamy curry.

These are fried lungs. They were great.



This is Xinzang Bing Qiezi, or Heart Disease Eggplant.



Our final meal in Tibet was a bittersweet affair. We returned (for a third time) to the Potala Restaurant, home of the world's best curried potatoes. We all ordered Lassis, a fruity yogurt drink, the curried potatoes, a spicy yak and potato dish cooked to perfection, a mutton curry set that came with two curries, lentils, and rice, and twelve momos, the Tibetan version of dumplings. We asked them for bread; they didn't have any. Imagine the picture below with an additional dish of 12 dumplings.



After lunch, we went to a restaurant across the street, ordered more Lassis and ice cream. And then, it was time for us to leave Lhasa.

I would say that Lhasa is a pretty spiritual place. I would say that the high number of temples would serve as a start to back that up. A lot of people go there for religious purposes. I can see why, though since I am not religious, I found understanding in another way. While I was standing on top of the Bakuo Temple looking at what is probably one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen (and I've seen quite a few), I was struck by a sense of sadness and regret. I knew that I would conjure a blurry memory of that every time i needed to get away. I knew that I would return to that place in my dreams, that I would think of that place every time I got stuck in a geographical rut, that that was a place I will long for for the rest of my life. It made me sad that I would have to leave knowing that I may never go back, and that if I do, it will certainly be different.

I've never been struck by that feeling before, the anticipation of missing a place—premature regret, I guess. I'll try to show you what I mean. The pictures still don't do it justice.







*Note: these are the only photos NOT by Jason Foong

Since getting back to Beijing, it seems that, for the three of us, our lives have revolved around food. Each week's dinner is carefully planned out; at one meal, we talk about what to eat tomorrow, or what we'll order when we return.

Last week, we went back to the Hakka restaurant for a third time and ordered snake.



It was pretty good. The outer part and skin tastes like fish, but it's pretty tough. The inside is really good-- tastes like tender chicken.

Then we went out for Tibetan food. Actually, it was pretty good. This is a really thick bread topped with saucy meat and peppers. Sinful.



These are fried potato balls with yogurt in the middle and topped with a lovely tomato sauce.



We also went out for roast duck:



We also had a Thai feast. It's probably one of the best restaurants I've ever been to, and hands down the best Thai ever. Take this fried fish as an example. It's like deep fried heaven.



Last night we went out for Belgian food, the highlight of which was the waffle. We each ordered one.



They were so good, we decided to order another and split it. That one was so good, we decided to order a third one and split it. The waiter must have thought we were crazy. There was an endless bread basket as well, notable only because it's a very non-Chinese thing. And the bread was warm French bread, and I even ate it with butter. I never eat butter.

Other than food, life in Beijing is still great. Last weekend we went to the Temple of Heaven. I've been there before, and since we were temple-d out, it wasn't super exciting, albeit still a nice way to spend a spring Saturday.





Here is a gorgeous little girl:




Tuesday was Labor Day, though the Chinese call it “Wuyi,” which is short for May First. They call this week huangjin zhou, or Golden Week. Everyone has the week off, so everyone's traveling and everywhere is busy. We still have class, and I felt bad that our teachers still had to work on a national holiday. But then CET surprised us and gave us Tuesday off, so Jason, Annetta and I (the Foodie Triad, it seems) went to Jiumen xiaochi (Nine Gate Snacks), this nifty buffet-esque place that serves “snacks.”

Let it be said that what the Chinese deem “snacks” could really be meals in themselves. It's a lie. Anyway, how this place works is you fill up a card with money, grab a tray, and then walk the aisle grabbing whatever you want.

This was our tray. We restrained ourselves, right?



Actually, that was our first tray. Here's our second:



I suppose it's rather telling that when I write a blog update, most of the things I write about are food-related. That's not totally on purpose; it just happens to be that I really appreciate food and can eat disgusting amounts at a time. My family does not understand this. My friends agree that I have broken out of the mold of my family and Americans in general in my passionate search for high-quality, satisfying, and varied food. My family likes to eat good food, don't get me wrong, but they just don't get the same satisfaction from food that I do. Since Jason, Annetta, and Victoria are Asian and Asians are notoriously passionate about food (I'm not stereotyping, this is what they tell me), I get pretty jealous of the stories of how their families spend whole days preparing massive feasts, or how they drive a good few hours just to get a good breakfast.

On a topic that's non-food related, Gabriel, Jason, Victoria, Annetta and I went to Tianqi's house and Annetta cooked us some Italian pasta (she knows her stuff).



Okay, that's food related, but the story is not. On the way back to school, we wanted to take a taxi but were faced with the inconvenience of having five people. China has rather strict laws on taxi passengers: no more than four to a cab. If a driver gets caught with more than four people, he faces pretty serious consequences: a fine and a license suspension. You'd be hard pressed to get five people in a cab.

But we are selfish waiguo ren. We were having quite a time hailing a cab, and we didn't want to split up. So what do we do? Hail a cab and pile in. The driver looked at us and said no. We, being waiguo ren, pretended not to understand what he was saying. We told him where we wanted to go in the most American-sounding Chinese we could muster. And we just sat in the cab until he started driving. He was not happy.

Actually, it seems that squeezing five people into a cab is a lot safer than a having a legal number. The driver was so afraid of being caught, he actually drove safely and observed traffic laws, which absolutely no one does here.

During the cab ride, clearly we couldn't speak Chinese or our cover would be blown. After all these months of trying not to speak English (most of the time, anyway), it was impossible to NOT speak Chinese. When we go out, we use Chinglish fluently. The cab driver knew we were deceiving him. When he dropped us off, he swore at us and told us he knew we were lying. We gave him an extra ten kuai.

So nothing bad happened. We got back to school, he got an extra ten kuai. But I'm not really sure if it was worth it. Ignorant, selfish waiguo ren that we are, we put this man's life in jeopardy. What if he had been caught? He would be out of work and probably fired or punished. His life could have been seriously damaged, but hailing a cab was too much of an inconvenience for us. This is why I hate waiguo ren, and I hate it even more when I become one to put a situation in my favor. Was the extra ten kuai worth it for him? Probably not. I don't plan to ever squeeze five people in a cab again, because the consequences to the cab driver are just too dire. Life in Beijing is hard enough, especially for cab drivers. Who am I to be the potential cause of suffering?

When you're living the waiguo ren lifestyle, as I am, in Beijing, life is grand. I eat like a gluttonous, obese king, and I spend money like one, too. I wear different clothes everyday and still feel the need to buy more. I'll bargain with you, but I could still afford to pay the doubled (at least) price you tell me first. I can take a taxi, spring for another dish and dessert, afford to buy gum (it's expensive here), foreign snacks, and imported fizzy water and still have money to spare. Basically, I can afford to uphold a fairly American lifestyle in China. Look at us, ordering a total of seven waffles for four people, asking for a bread basket refill four or five times, going out for meals that cost anywhere from four to ten times what we would pay for a meal at a regular Chinese restaurant around school. We can afford to see, eat, and buy the best that China has to offer, and go to Tibet for ten days. We're sitting rather pretty.

That's why everyone thinks all Americans are rich: not because we necessarily are, but because we act like we are, even if we aren't, and are entitled to all that we have and all that we want from China. That is why China's economy is booming: because they have no problem giving us everything we want for a price. Because I think that they know that someday, our entitlement will come back to bite us in the ass when we suddenly realize that China wields an uncomfortable amount of power over us and our lifestyles.