Jun. 19th, 2004 10:58 pm
哪裏 and back again
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muckefuckIt's been a long and tiring day--in a good way, mind you, but the body craves sleep. However, the mind has learned that if you put off updating LiveJournal, the entries have a funny way of never getting written.
Things didn't start out outrageously promisingly. I got up early and took care of my first few errands, but then the delays started. Construction on the Howard, ball game, and the PR pride festival in Humboldt Park. (After all that time on trains full of Cubs fans and boricuas, I could go without seeing any red-white-and-blue sportswear for a long time.) By the time I finished my taxes at Nuphy's, we had only ten minutes to get to Chinatown for our lunch date. Waiting for a cab in his neighbourhood is akin to trainspotting in Antarctica. This left us dependent on the mercy of the CTA and the forebearance of our friends. (Fortunately, the latter infinitely exceeds the former.)
So the much-anticipated visit to Spring World (a.k.a. 红塔山食莊) commenced only 40 minutes after it was set to. Poor![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tyrannio! Of the three veggie dishes, one arrived laced with beef (a boon to me, let me tell you!) and another was eggplant, leaving him with little beyond a platter of bitter melon. With Nuphy focussing on the orange chicken (yes, folks, I mocked him but good for ordering the Chinese equivalent of spaghetti with marinara), innerdoggie and I got to split the tea-smoked duck between us. This almost made up for the fact that we managed to visit a Yunnanese restaurant and not eat any Yunnanese ham! Almost. A return trip is imperative!
Nuphy had to flee to his next appointment (tickets to Ravinian tonight) so the rest of us embarked on a tour of Chinatown. First, Yin Wo City where I got candied kumquats and spent too much on pi lo chun tea. (Not that I think the tea is overpriced, just that my palate probably can't distinguish well enough between the $55/lb. and the $75 to make buying the higher grade reasonable. But it looks so purty!) We had to follow this up with Aji no Ichiban (a.k.a. "the Home of Wrong Candy"), wheretyrannio successfully induced me to sample the candied olives. It made me wonder if anyone serves them fresh, since I think the usual brine is 90% of my objection to their flavour.
At the bookstore, I picked up a most unusual deck of playing cards andtyrannio bought a Chinese book on Mexican cooking. Who knew you could make mole with Hershey's syrup? We worked our way to the far side of Chinatown Square, collecting menus and mismatched Chinese and English names (fodder for another post) the whole way. We have got to check out Lao Sichuan, people. It has the most interesting and diverse menu I've ever seen in Chicago's Chinatown. And free eyeballs with every three dishes! (Just kidding! Really, it's free pork blood cake.)
At a new market on Archer, they did some food shopping and I picked up a bag of fresh lichees. They wanted to get back to HP before night fell and the werewolves came out, but it was so pleasant out I could think of nothing finer than sitting in the mall, watching the crowd, and eating my lichees. Too bad the lichees weren't one fifth as good as those I bought on Argyle two weeks earlier. I decided to call up a bear buddy who lives downtown, but he was busy with his parents. Go home? What about dinner? I finally felt some appetite returning and figured I could down a small dish.
Mountain View Food Court (a.k.a. 168食街 or "168 Food Street"--like I said, plenty of fodder) seemed just right and not too crowded. Asking the waitress about one of the Chinese-language specials got me a completely illegible handwritten Chinese menu. The special was a mysterious "Taiwan Small Fried" which she described as having "lotus root and pork". Apparently, in Taiwan, this means anchovies, crunchy tofu, and hollow-stem vegetable. Whatever, it was good all the same. No one seem to mind that I followed it up by whipping out my bag of lichees and eating them. In fact, this became a talking point for me and a member of the family group at the next table, waiting for their feast. "They're not ripe," he told me, "It's not the season." He was amazed I'd gotten good ones on Argyle.
Nothing to do now but head home. Who knew there'd be a choral group performing informally in the centre square? My first thought was, "That's not Chinese." My second was, "Funny, they don't look like missionaries." In fact, it was Russian and they were a singing group celebrating the doctoral defence of one of their members. I found this out by asking, "Are you Golosa?" One woman asked, "How did you know?" and I had to find a polite way of saying, "Because you really look like a bunch of UoC geeks." Then the lanky, bespectacled leader came forth and said, "Don't we know each other?" and I had to find some way of explaining our connexion without mentioningsnowy_owlet. Within moments, I was whipping out a pad to take down an author recommendation from a woman studying Polish Jewish literature and another from the newly-minted PhD, whose field just happens to be mediaeval Chinese Buddhist sculpture. monshu, there's a whole book out there Avalokiteshvara's sex-change and now we can begin looking for it.
My people; I can find them anywhere.
I left that gathering tickled seven shades of pink. There was a gorgeous golden sliver of a moon in the sky and I thought This is a fine ending. Except, of course, there was the small matter of an hour on the El ahead of me, which has destroyed more good moods than I care to remember. When a crowd of loud teenagers with day-glow wigs got on, I figured my mood was shattered. But before they got off, I had joined in their punning game, adding "Dirt Baggins" to a list containing such gems as "Burlap Baggins", "Douche Baggins", and "Colostomy Baggins". (After they were gone, the middle-aged woman sitting next to me asked, "What's a 'baggins'?")
Things didn't start out outrageously promisingly. I got up early and took care of my first few errands, but then the delays started. Construction on the Howard, ball game, and the PR pride festival in Humboldt Park. (After all that time on trains full of Cubs fans and boricuas, I could go without seeing any red-white-and-blue sportswear for a long time.) By the time I finished my taxes at Nuphy's, we had only ten minutes to get to Chinatown for our lunch date. Waiting for a cab in his neighbourhood is akin to trainspotting in Antarctica. This left us dependent on the mercy of the CTA and the forebearance of our friends. (Fortunately, the latter infinitely exceeds the former.)
So the much-anticipated visit to Spring World (a.k.a. 红塔山食莊) commenced only 40 minutes after it was set to. Poor
tyrannio! Of the three veggie dishes, one arrived laced with beef (a boon to me, let me tell you!) and another was eggplant, leaving him with little beyond a platter of bitter melon. With Nuphy focussing on the orange chicken (yes, folks, I mocked him but good for ordering the Chinese equivalent of spaghetti with marinara), innerdoggie and I got to split the tea-smoked duck between us. This almost made up for the fact that we managed to visit a Yunnanese restaurant and not eat any Yunnanese ham! Almost. A return trip is imperative!Nuphy had to flee to his next appointment (tickets to Ravinian tonight) so the rest of us embarked on a tour of Chinatown. First, Yin Wo City where I got candied kumquats and spent too much on pi lo chun tea. (Not that I think the tea is overpriced, just that my palate probably can't distinguish well enough between the $55/lb. and the $75 to make buying the higher grade reasonable. But it looks so purty!) We had to follow this up with Aji no Ichiban (a.k.a. "the Home of Wrong Candy"), where
tyrannio successfully induced me to sample the candied olives. It made me wonder if anyone serves them fresh, since I think the usual brine is 90% of my objection to their flavour.At the bookstore, I picked up a most unusual deck of playing cards and
tyrannio bought a Chinese book on Mexican cooking. Who knew you could make mole with Hershey's syrup? We worked our way to the far side of Chinatown Square, collecting menus and mismatched Chinese and English names (fodder for another post) the whole way. We have got to check out Lao Sichuan, people. It has the most interesting and diverse menu I've ever seen in Chicago's Chinatown. And free eyeballs with every three dishes! (Just kidding! Really, it's free pork blood cake.)At a new market on Archer, they did some food shopping and I picked up a bag of fresh lichees. They wanted to get back to HP before night fell and the werewolves came out, but it was so pleasant out I could think of nothing finer than sitting in the mall, watching the crowd, and eating my lichees. Too bad the lichees weren't one fifth as good as those I bought on Argyle two weeks earlier. I decided to call up a bear buddy who lives downtown, but he was busy with his parents. Go home? What about dinner? I finally felt some appetite returning and figured I could down a small dish.
Mountain View Food Court (a.k.a. 168食街 or "168 Food Street"--like I said, plenty of fodder) seemed just right and not too crowded. Asking the waitress about one of the Chinese-language specials got me a completely illegible handwritten Chinese menu. The special was a mysterious "Taiwan Small Fried" which she described as having "lotus root and pork". Apparently, in Taiwan, this means anchovies, crunchy tofu, and hollow-stem vegetable. Whatever, it was good all the same. No one seem to mind that I followed it up by whipping out my bag of lichees and eating them. In fact, this became a talking point for me and a member of the family group at the next table, waiting for their feast. "They're not ripe," he told me, "It's not the season." He was amazed I'd gotten good ones on Argyle.
Nothing to do now but head home. Who knew there'd be a choral group performing informally in the centre square? My first thought was, "That's not Chinese." My second was, "Funny, they don't look like missionaries." In fact, it was Russian and they were a singing group celebrating the doctoral defence of one of their members. I found this out by asking, "Are you Golosa?" One woman asked, "How did you know?" and I had to find a polite way of saying, "Because you really look like a bunch of UoC geeks." Then the lanky, bespectacled leader came forth and said, "Don't we know each other?" and I had to find some way of explaining our connexion without mentioning
snowy_owlet. Within moments, I was whipping out a pad to take down an author recommendation from a woman studying Polish Jewish literature and another from the newly-minted PhD, whose field just happens to be mediaeval Chinese Buddhist sculpture. monshu, there's a whole book out there Avalokiteshvara's sex-change and now we can begin looking for it.My people; I can find them anywhere.
I left that gathering tickled seven shades of pink. There was a gorgeous golden sliver of a moon in the sky and I thought This is a fine ending. Except, of course, there was the small matter of an hour on the El ahead of me, which has destroyed more good moods than I care to remember. When a crowd of loud teenagers with day-glow wigs got on, I figured my mood was shattered. But before they got off, I had joined in their punning game, adding "Dirt Baggins" to a list containing such gems as "Burlap Baggins", "Douche Baggins", and "Colostomy Baggins". (After they were gone, the middle-aged woman sitting next to me asked, "What's a 'baggins'?")
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Olives
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(Weren't you at that Shakespeare party?)
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If it's in English, could I have the reference?
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At 640 p., this may be more Guanyin than you really have an appetite for. She also recommended the essay upon which the book is based, which appeared in the catalog to a 1994 exhibition entitled [pace
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