EATING BRIGHT AND LOUD

Shan’t say where it is other than to state that it is in Chinatown, nor will I name it in this post.
Reason being that what I describe might predispose you against going there.
Suffice to say that it is much good.  Much much good.


孤膽飲茶
HAVING DIMSUM BY MYSELF

The business has been around for years.  I hadn't eaten there in long time, so on a whim I went inside.
Except for a squalling foreign brat and his parents, and a very pretty girl eating lunch with her grand dad, I was the youngest person there.
Which is unusual.
Everyone else was retirement age, and some of them approached the hoary antiquity of the fossil record.
Geezers contentedly chowing down on some excellent dimsum.  In between bouts of coughing.
Some of them were absolute masters of the tussive arts.  Hack, haaack, hewk!
It was that characteristic joy at esophageal expulsis which many Cantonese oldsters evince that set their symphony apart.
Heart and soul went into their throat sounds.  Possibly also bits of lung.  Or is that pork mince?
A few, undoubtedly, had been chainsmokers for years.  Others were merely reacting to a coating of grease inside their throats after having eaten too many juicy tidbits.
Evidence, one might say, of great pleasure.

The food is that good. Yes.
The tables are wiped regularly, and far enough apart that startling eruptions from other diners should be no cause for alarm.  They are, in any case, alive. There's audible proof.
The walls have that old-timey somewhat barebones institutional look, but there's a warmth to the place, and it is comfortable.
The people who run it are decent home-town folks who are proud of what they do.
Their food is pretty darn good.

While I was sitting at my table digesting, swilling down buckets of pu-erh tea, and filling my pipe, one of the local eccentrics came in. At first I thought he was barking (as in 'barking mad'), then I realized that he was actually roaring out a conversation in Cantonese with the owner.
What made it remarkable was that he was quite clearly a big hairy white man.
That makes two Caucasians in the same place who speak Cantonese. What are the chances of that?
Some of the old age pensioners at this point had delighted looks on their faces.
It isn't often that one gets a freak show with lunch.
Time for more happy coughing!

I'll definitely put this eatery in my ambit.

According to the oh so knowledgeable experts on YELP, the restaurant is "a crappy, dirty, smelly Chinese hole", "small, cramped", and "hard to talk to the wait-staff, unless you know Cantonese".
Service is minimal, they say, but I had no cause to complain.
The stuffed eggplant, ha gau, siu mai, and spare ribs are justifiably well regarded.
Likewise the meatballs, homemade hot sauce, and ham sui gok.
Plus the phoenix claws are beautiful.

What I had to accompany my pot of po-nay tsa was mashed shrimp in green bell pepper wedges and a plate of tofu skin rolls filled with meat and waterchestnuts.
Both were exceptionally flavourful and juicy.
The ambiance suits me just fine.
Hrack, cough, hurk.


NOTES:

點心 (dim sam) small dishes enjoyed morning to early afternoon at a tea house.  釀茄子, 釀矮瓜 (yeung ke ji, yeung ngai gwa) stuffed eggplant.  蝦餃 (haa gau) shrimp bonnets.  燒賣 (siu maai) steamed pork and shrimp dumplings.  排骨 (pai gwat) spareribs.  牛肉球 (ngau yiuk kau) meat ball.  辣醬 (laat jeung) hot sauce.  鹹水角 (haahm sui gok) fried sticky dumplings.  鳳爪 (fung jau) phoenix claws.  普洱茶 (po-nay tsa) pu-erh tea; a darkened tea fermented after full drying and compressing, excellent for the digestion when indulging in rich greasy foods, and considered mildly tonic.  蝦膠釀青椒 (haa gau yeung tsing chiu) green bell pepper pieces stuffed with fresh shrimp mince.  馬蹄 (ma tai) water chestnuts.  腐皮捲 (fu pei kuen) stuffed tofu skin roll.  氣氛 (hei fan) ambiance.  咳 (kat) cough.




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