I had orientation a few days ago and met a lot of people from all over the world. How would this experience be complete without a fellow Indian by my side? Surely enough, he was there. Our eyes connected from across the room, we slowly moved towards each other, everything around us moved in slow motion...no, I'm kidding. I go to get my bag to leave and lo and behold our friend is sitting right next to my bag.
At first glance I was absolutely shocked --- his name was Ajay Pai. You have to be kidding me I thought to myself. What are the chances that there would be another Konkani, let alone Pai in my program at Beida?? We got to talking and yes he is Konkani and yes this is a miracle of God. I hope to hang out with him soon and brush up on my Konkani speaking skills. Who knew I would come to China and get better at Konkani?
Besides all the excitement that is still pumping through my veins from that night, I've gotten a pretty good feel on Chinese cuisine. In one or my earlier posts I told you that I got a great meal at this "hole in the wall" place, when really I failed to notice the real hole in the wall place right across the street. This place is a diamond in the rough. Excellent food, great service, and of course amazing prices.
I eat there at least once a day, if not twice. I've gotten pretty fond, and frankly almost sick, of the pork dumplings. At this place they are made fresh to order and it really does make a huge difference. I've come a long way from those frozen dumpling packets I used to buy at Jungle Jim's.
I also immediately fell in love with the fried rice and noodles. Now I'm not that big of a noodles guy, but I just got back from eating some fried noodles with pork and is was delicious, or as I tell the owners, hao chi.
The slight, and by slight I mean of the slightest possible meaning, downside to all this food loving is the effects on my stomach. Even though I grew up on all those spicy Indian dishes, there is something about the food here that doesn't always sit well. I'll leave the rest up to the imagination, but no I haven't had to take an Pepto Bismol yet.
Now that I think about it, the area of my Mandarin that has improved the most is in the food setting. I can virtually go sit down, eat a meal, pay, thank them, and walk out without a word of English. I would be hard pressed to find any other circumstance in which I was able to successfully speak Mandarin the whole time, but this may be due to the lack of English speaking people over here. That'll be the topic of discussion for the next post though.
All-in-all the food is great. A little different than China One buffet on a Saturday afternoon, but I'm not complaining. I can say one thing though to set the record straight - people here, at least from my experience, do not eat scorpion and seahorse. Only tourists like me do, check the videos on Picasa! You can't come to China and not eat those things! Next thing you know I'm going to say that about eating dog, poor Moti...
Here's to some good eats!
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