HAUNTING PLACES TO EAT

Some of my favourite dining halls in Chinatown no longer exist. In the two decades that Savage Kitten and I were together we rarely ate at Chinese restaurants, never in the old neighborhood. The fear of running into one of her Mom's friends or relatives was far too great. It was a risk we had to avoid.

Now that I am single again, I would've liked to go back to those places.

Unfortunately they disappeared over time as owners sold or retired, and as Cantonese enterprise shifted to the avenues.

Most of the people with whom I ate back in the eighties are also gone.
Some died, some moved further into the interior to try their luck running restaurants in 'white-people's-America'.
Many have gotten married. Marriage is a death sentence for a lot of the old routines - it dampens the habits of one's dissolute bachelor days.

Going out to eat with a group of casual friends is one of those dampened things.
The responsible Cantonese family man does not spend money on foolish pursuits or casual entertainments. Not with a wife and children who require his investment.
Yam-cha, sik siu yeh, and hoei jau ba must fade from the program.

[Yam-cha (飲茶): "drink tea" - to go eat dimsum, a breakfast or brunch consisting of many types of steamed dumplings, savoury items, small dishes. Frequently done with a bunch of other people. Married men, however, do it with their family and relatives. Sik siu yeh (食宵夜): to eat late at night, to have midnight snacks. To the Cantonese, there is no time when food is not fun. Sik siu yeh is also done with a whole bunch of people, some of whom might be inebriated. Hoei jau ba (去酒吧): go to a bar and imbibe spirits. Likewise a group thing, usually followed by 去食宵夜.]

The Hakka place (梅江飯店) with the wine-lees seethed mixed vegetables and pork curls, which also did a killer mui-tsoi kau-yiuk (梅菜扣肉) eventually became something else - I remember walking past several years ago and noticing that it had changed. The teaplace that served honestly scrumptious dimsum, wide variety, everything freshly made in plain sight - gone.
The restaurant where I feasted at Man-tzai's wedding to the pie-faced girl (three hundred guests!) had been sold way back in the nineties.
The sweet fragrance café is now a Thai noodle shop, Restaurant Tao Tao has become a bookstore, and the Ping Yuen Bakery and Restaurant (superior dinner specials at affordable price) went out of business and become several something elses.
The place where I used to get those nice Northern boiled dumplings (yummy with black vinegar and hotsauce!) changed hands five times (!) over the past several years.

The ever-hungry Shanghainese students have all dispersed, the cheerful Cantonese disreputables have reformed.
Ah-Moy went to New York back in the nineties. Huong is in Denver. Lo Tung and Kap Yin Gwai opened legitimate business somewhere back east. Ah-Choy, Ah-Tam, and Older Brother Wing are finally upstanding citizens. Family men. It took a while.
For all of them.

The moon-faced university student married her college sweetheart, I think she lives in Los Angeles.
The nurse may have hitched up with a doctor fella from Texas - not sure. She liked chocolate milk, the whipped cream would end up on her nose.
The Shanghainese girl with the exceptionally generous roundnesses found someone too, probably a wealthy man.
And alas, I have no clue whatsoever what happened to the steaming!!! hot!!! seventeen year old. She's probably the happy mother of multiples by now.

I guess I'm going to have to rediscover Chinatown eateries by myself in the coming months. Should be interesting. But it will take somewhat longer than in the past - I'm not very hungry these days, and food really does taste better in company. So much better.
Still.

The voyage of discovery starts with a single mouthful.

Reviews will be spottily forthcoming. Stay tuned.



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