In the house of the happy and carefree

[muckefuck]

If you know me at all well, you know I am nothing if not bloody-minded. Especially when it comes to important things, like eating. So when I learned of the existence of a new restaurant founded by a fugitive chef from our great standby, Spring World, I fixed my heart upon trying it. Unfortunately the Reader review described it only as being located "on the lonely eastern edge of Chinatown Mall". I was confident enough in my ability to find it that I convinced a troupe of Bear Pride attendees (including our very own aadroma) to accompany me there. But after a few minutes searching failed to turn it up, I knew precious goodwill was fading and made the command decision to steer everyone into Spring World.

My sure bet secured a successful evening, but naturally I pined to try again. A long summer of scorching heat and desperate lameness conspired to keep me away, but in the cool depths of Pod Klonami I plotted, eventually assembling a second expedition of hardcore foodies who I knew would scale mountains with me in search of a unique food experience: nerdboy extraordinnaire Nuphy, the indefatigable Mozhu and her Reader-veteran husband, and of course the indomitable monshu. My secret weapon turned out to be my craptastic memory. I led us to the new building on the site of the former school/Chinatown Museum/antiques minimal thinking it held a liquor store where we could get a bottle of wine for dinner. In fact, it contained the restaurant, and I remembered at that point that the liquor store we stumbled over during the aforementioned bear outing.

Have faith in me that I wouldn't have constructed such a wordy introduction if the food at Tao Ran Ju weren't truly something to rave about. We followed the advice in the Reader and elsewhere and stayed clear of the hotpots, preferring small plates. The soup dumplings (小籠包) were, as hoped, the best we have ever eaten. In some ways, though, I was even more impressed with how they handled old standards, turning out the lightest scallion pancakes (蔥油餅) and seafood potstickers I've ever eaten. I would've liked to try more of the skewers, since if the others are anything like the grilled butterflied shrimps we had, then they must be to die for.

We only had one main dish, the "dry pot lamb". A little investigation reveals that "dry pot" or "dry hot pot" (麻辣香鍋 "spicy fragrant wok") is the hottest food trend in Beijing right now. Despite what the name suggests, the meat is actually cooked in liquid--and not any liquid, but an extremely tasty gravy spiked with Sichuan chilis. In essence, it's a pre-made hot pot with a fraction of the water. Our lamb was exquisitely tender and I feared that once the sterno died beneath the pot Mozhu would try to drink every last bit of the broth. After that, even an excellent dish would've been anticlimactic, and the grilled tilapia that arrived belatedly at our table was far from an excellent dish. The others professed to love it, but I found it exceedingly bland (particular in contrast to the grilled shrimps) and mushy.

So one misfire on a table piled with excellent food. Washing it down, we had hot tea, Tsingtao, and Shaoxing. The last was a little rough; I would never have finished my first cup if I hadn't had the genius idea of dropping in a few "golden kumquats" recently purchased from Aji Ichiban. You see, when we were given huángjiǔ to drink it China, it came with little cups of fresh ginger and dried plums to use as flavouring. I especially appreciated how the latter mellowed and sweetened the wine, and these little candied fruits had the same effect (as well as making for better eating afterwards than reconstituted plums). Each time I filled the cup, I dropped in a fresh kumquat, and we almost got through the bottle before the end of the meal.

As for the service, I have no complaints. I asked for a corner table over the phone and we got one, so I could comfortable set my crutches against the wall and my bum foot on a spare chair. Food came quickly and the teapot never ran dry. After two hours of pure pleasure, we began talking about getting the check. I was explaining to Mozhu how well "Máidān"(埋單), a bit of Cantonese slang transported to the capital, had served us in Beijing. And older gentleman overheard us and smiled. "Máidān?" he asked; I nodded yes and our bill was on the table within moments.

Comments

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

Just what IS 埋單??

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

What do you mean? You know the meaning of each of the characters, don't you?

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

Yes, which is why that made no sense to me. How a "bury single" is someone's bill makes no sense to me unless this is a case where random characters were just slapped on for their phonetic value.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

單 here is short for 賬單 "bill". You're offering to "bury the bill", i.e. take responsibility for doing away with it.

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, that's slightly more logical. None of these terms are used at all in Japanese, but I might have figured it out had 賬 and not the unhelpful 單 been used in the abbreviated compound.

So yeah, your "You know the meaning of each of the characters, don't you?" argument is still totally invalid. :: laugh ::

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

It wasn't an "argument", it was an attempt to clarify the question. I had already explained what it meant and where it came from, so I wasn't sure what you were asking about if not the individual components.

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

Heheh, but that's the thing, you explained where it came from (Cantonese) and that it was well-received and involved paying the bill, but that doesn't give the definition. :: laugh :: The characters in this case were of absolutely no help (and thus this could be some colloquialism with some not-so-obvious definition!), hence why I asked for a meaning.