01-29-2005, 11:39 PM
I was horrified last weekend. I met up with a couple of people that I haven't seen since high school, and we decided to hop a few bars together. At about midnight, this one guy gets hungry so we stop at a 24 hour deli...and comes out with some take-out sushi.
"Hey, you want a California roll?"
"No!"
"Oh, you don't like sushi?"
"I do, I love sushi but...you just paid $5 for this from the same place we used to get Olde English and Mad Dog 20/20 ten years ago."
"So? It's pretty good, have some."
So I took a roll, bit half of it, and god it was awful. Sort of the equivalent of going to Taco Bell and thinking you're having Mexican tonight. I wondered if he hated every bite, but faked it just to appear cool and worldly. And then I wondered how anyone could think they are worldly by buying a sushi plate from a 24 hour deli in Hackensack. Where's the wasabe? Who's the itamae? No oshibori? Whatever...
So moving on, I headed into Chinatown yesterday because I haven't been there in a while. I usually head into Chinatown at least once a month because it's one of the few good things in This Urban Life. I can get a cheap meal with shit like bitter melon in it and look at cool stuff that I want but don't buy because I don't need. There's this one vegeterian restaurant I went into and it was breaking my rule of how I decide where I'll eat in Chinatown (or any other ethnic place). Basically, I look for the place that has the least white people in it and the most Asians and figure that place is the goods and so I usually wind up in one of three places: a Vietnamese place that has the same food as a different Viet place which caterers to white folks but charges twice as much, a run down diner where they have the bitter melon, or a place on the edge where they'll shunt me into a corner table and give me really lousy service, but the food is damn good even if I make a mistake like ordering a dish that's almost all meat since I like the vegetables.
So anyway, I went into this vegeterian place and I'm not vegeterian, although at this point I only eat chicken and fish, but as I said, I really love vegetables and I'm hoping for a place where I can get big heaping platefuls of vegetables lovingly prepared. Only what they have there is all fake meat. You can get tofu that tastes like beef, chicken or pork in your choice of sauces and I'm saying what the fuck is this? I don't want meat, why would I want to eat meat that isn't meat?
After lunch I wander around Chinatown looking in the shops at all the statues and idols I think are cool, but not $40 cool. I always want to get a big ol' statue of Guanyin, reminding me of the value of compassion in life as we're all wandering in this together...there also was this votive holder with horses on it that I thought about, even though I only burn candles when someone's going to be dripping the wax on me or me on them. I bought a tea-pot, though, since I have none and lately have been drinking tea instead of coffee so I figure I'll teach myself to make it properly.
There were skull mugs there and I thought about buying one or two cause they looked badass, but I just ended up buying a cup for my tea that has a carving of a hut in the mountains, which is the hut of the immortals, which will remind me of my essential Tao nature as I sip my tea, which is important because I've forgotten it lately and drinking anything should never be to drown sorrows but instead to enhance joys, which is why everyone should drink.
"Hey, you want a California roll?"
"No!"
"Oh, you don't like sushi?"
"I do, I love sushi but...you just paid $5 for this from the same place we used to get Olde English and Mad Dog 20/20 ten years ago."
"So? It's pretty good, have some."
So I took a roll, bit half of it, and god it was awful. Sort of the equivalent of going to Taco Bell and thinking you're having Mexican tonight. I wondered if he hated every bite, but faked it just to appear cool and worldly. And then I wondered how anyone could think they are worldly by buying a sushi plate from a 24 hour deli in Hackensack. Where's the wasabe? Who's the itamae? No oshibori? Whatever...
So moving on, I headed into Chinatown yesterday because I haven't been there in a while. I usually head into Chinatown at least once a month because it's one of the few good things in This Urban Life. I can get a cheap meal with shit like bitter melon in it and look at cool stuff that I want but don't buy because I don't need. There's this one vegeterian restaurant I went into and it was breaking my rule of how I decide where I'll eat in Chinatown (or any other ethnic place). Basically, I look for the place that has the least white people in it and the most Asians and figure that place is the goods and so I usually wind up in one of three places: a Vietnamese place that has the same food as a different Viet place which caterers to white folks but charges twice as much, a run down diner where they have the bitter melon, or a place on the edge where they'll shunt me into a corner table and give me really lousy service, but the food is damn good even if I make a mistake like ordering a dish that's almost all meat since I like the vegetables.
So anyway, I went into this vegeterian place and I'm not vegeterian, although at this point I only eat chicken and fish, but as I said, I really love vegetables and I'm hoping for a place where I can get big heaping platefuls of vegetables lovingly prepared. Only what they have there is all fake meat. You can get tofu that tastes like beef, chicken or pork in your choice of sauces and I'm saying what the fuck is this? I don't want meat, why would I want to eat meat that isn't meat?
After lunch I wander around Chinatown looking in the shops at all the statues and idols I think are cool, but not $40 cool. I always want to get a big ol' statue of Guanyin, reminding me of the value of compassion in life as we're all wandering in this together...there also was this votive holder with horses on it that I thought about, even though I only burn candles when someone's going to be dripping the wax on me or me on them. I bought a tea-pot, though, since I have none and lately have been drinking tea instead of coffee so I figure I'll teach myself to make it properly.
There were skull mugs there and I thought about buying one or two cause they looked badass, but I just ended up buying a cup for my tea that has a carving of a hut in the mountains, which is the hut of the immortals, which will remind me of my essential Tao nature as I sip my tea, which is important because I've forgotten it lately and drinking anything should never be to drown sorrows but instead to enhance joys, which is why everyone should drink.