Gooey food

I am just going to come out and say it… some of us are really, really getting sick of the same food meal after meal after meal. It seems every lunch and dinner takes place around a lazy-susan, upon which dozens of rich, sauce laden dishes are placed before us. If it ain’t friend, it is covered in some think sauce.

 

 

Kathy is dying for some dim-sum or a Chinese noodle house. We just want some variety… variety that is not yak meat. There is no such thing as a salad (we couldn’t eat one anyway as the water they would use to wash the lettuce would likely get us sick). This is apparently a nation that has never heard of simple preparation of any dish. As Lisa Sheppard said with a sigh, “I just want some un-gooed broccoli,” a line that had me almost rolling on the floor in laughter. Here is a picture of Lisa incredibly excited that we actually got some fairly simple noodles to eat at this meal.

 

 

The other problem is the drinks. For some reason, the Chinese have a rule that you can only have one drink at a meal – including water. Often, the “one drink” rule applies even though our glasses are tiny, like only 6 or 8 ounces. It really feels like we are being nickled and dimed a bit. It is particularly troublesome here in this city because we have been eating a lot of spicy Szechwan food and we are only allowed a little bit of water or coke or beer to wash it down. My mouth was on fire at times (in a good way, I like spicy food). Lori Collins was so fed up, she went ahead and ordered a drink even though she had to pay for it. The waitress was sorta nasty about it but brought Lori a Coke and then thrust a bill at her to pay. Wanna know how much it was? 10 Yuan, about $1.50. We all started laughing. All this fuss over $1.50 drinks?!?!? Lisa Sheppard promptly plunked a 10 Yuan note down on the table and said, “bring me one too!”