Language geek bliss

[muckefuck]

At monshu's request, I stopped by Mei Shung to pick up dinner. The food is Taiwanese, so I'd always assumed the staff was, too. But I was sitting near two of the waitresses and it definitely sounded to me like they were speaking some form of Cantonese. The owner may have spoken Taiwanese on her mobile, but the discussions between her and the two women at a nearby table were definitely Mandarin. They were the only diners when I arrived, but pretty soon a Hispanic couple came in with their baby and struck up a friendly chat with busboy and a group of three middle-aged Anglos took a table near the window. At one point, there were conversations going on in Spanish, English, and two Chinese sublanguages (or "dialects" if you prefer traditional terminology) and I was in the middle of it all.

(Oh, and the food was good, too.)

Comments

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Several years back I had to wait for a late train in Woodside, NY, the Irish redoubt in Queens where I now live. The train wasn't due for another 45 minutes so I left the train platform for the local Greek coffee shop, the only place open that wasn't a pub. I looked at the menu and at the faces of the waitresses and I realized I'd landed somewhere in a northern suburb of Dublin. Full Irish fry-ups were availble, bean sandwiches and so on, and the waitresses all had pale, pale skin with freckles, and big, full, curly red hair pulled back into buns. Impressed as I was at the Hiberno-Greek intersection, I was unprepared to listen to the waitress relay my order in Spanish to the short order cook and then tell the bus boy to get me my coffee.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Hiberno-English-accented Spanish? I shudder!

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Think Black Irish, the Spanish wine trade, Columbus's visit to Galway...

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Virrey Donoju, Osborne sherry, Don Leopoldo O'Donnell Duque de Tetuan...

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

The wild goose is cooked in an amontillado.

[go-wade-in.livejournal.com]

prices?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

$25 for two entrees and an appetiser. Haven't I pushed Mei Shung on you before?

[go-wade-in.livejournal.com]

nope. always wanted to try it but never found the time.

[gopower.livejournal.com]

It's is a great place. They have a very cheap lunch special -- like $5 for small entree, appetizer & soup for about $5. And, unlike a lot of places, it even offers the special on weekends (or at least Saturdays).

It's best known for its chocolate fortune cookies, which do not taste much different than regular ones but are much more decorative.