RICE IS MY LIFE!

One of my favourite movie scenes is the over-the-top shoot-out that culminates the action in A Better Tomorrow 2. The movie was made nearly twenty years ago by director John Woo and producer Tsui Hark, featuring Chow Yun-fat, Ti Lung, and Leslie Cheung, with Ko Ying-pui as the evil gangboss, and Lau Siu-ming as the police inspector.

The good guys basically blast a hundred gunslinging goons into the afterlife in a climactic battle at a mansion. Operatic, poetry in motion, and totally, heroically, maximum boffo. A grand bloodsplatter masterpiece.

This was preceded, early in the film, by a dramatic firefight in a New York apartment building that resembled the interior of several of the flea-bag hotels in Northbeach and SF Chinatown, as well as the iconic "Rice Is My Life" speech in a Chinese restaurant run by Chow, when two hoodlums try to extort protection money.


"This f*ckin' fried rice stinks!"


Au risque de me prendre des baffes, that fried rice probably did stink.
It was prepared to the specific tastes of the typical Chinese Restaurant demographic, which, outside of a Chinese neighborhood, usually consists of cheapazoid kwailo douchebags from Suburbia (or snooty wasp food snobs), who know bugger-all about good eating in general.
Chinese cuisine in particular.

Consider the most popular dishes on the menu at that nice place down the street. Sweet and sour pork. General Chow's Chicken. Shrimp-fried rice. Hot and Sour Soup. Kung Pao Shoeleather. Brocolli Beef. Something With Cashews. Et autres qui sont soigneusement répulsive.

These are all things eaten by white people. Sometimes Cantonese people will eat them too, especially if that restaurant does a dynamite rendition and their children are very Americanized, but they are not dishes which the average native of Hong Kong or Guangzhou will seek out.

Although they will often suggest them to Mandarin speakers.

Because Northern Chinese don't know any better.

There is, however, an overlap where Cantonese and white people do have similar tastes: Singapore Rice-noodles, Yangchow Fried Rice, Charsiu Pork. Salt and pepper chicken wings.
And dim sum.

[My Caucasian American readers should please not be offended; the Europeans and the Japanese have even worse taste, as they are accustomed to "Chinese" food with electric red and orange sugar sauces. But on the other hand, Hunanese restaurants in San Francisco which also offer brown rice are catering specifically to sniffy ignorant boobs who wouldn't know beans if it came up and bit them in the arse.]


Yesterday a customer at one of my favourite inexpensive Chinatown eateries demanded to know whether there was gluten in the food.
What I had on my plate at the time was steamed chicken bun, pork siumai, and, to shake it up a little, some fried potstickers.
The latter are a very tasty abomination.
   
麵筋
['min gan']

The proprietress speaks English very badly, and gluten is not part of her non-Chinese vocabulary. As the only person there at that time with any real facility in English, I stepped in and explained that there was gluten in several of the steamed dishes (and everything on my plate), as well as present in rather large quantity in the wonton noodle soup and the baked items. And in any case trace amounts of gluten normally show up in many cooking ingredients or condiments. The kitchen, like any kitchen, really, was NOT a wheat-free environment.

Perhaps she should simply have some rice soup?

"But I positively hate rice!"

You know, there are times when the utter stupidity of people completely floors me. Gluten-phobic dingos are bad enough, but expecting that their idiotic food fetishes will be coddled, and also wanting to avoid rice, in the middle of Chinatown, at an eatery which clearly caters to Chinese people (who usually adhere to neither of those neuroses), is perhaps the acme of dingleberry.

Exclaiming "I hate rice" in a whiny tone in a restaurant run by and for Chinese people is just not diplomatic, and gives a bad impression of your personality and intelligence.

Dim sum and Chinese baked goods are not for you.

Please go back to Marin or Berkeley.

We have our own nuts.


My repast was utterly delightful. Steamed chicken bun, pork siumai, and fried potstickers. I even had a jin dui afterwards. The dough for which is made with glutinous rice flour. It is deep fried, and rolled sesame seeds. She could have had that; no actual gluten, despite the name.
Oh wait ... it contains rice!
Aaaack!




AFTER THOUGHT

Other cuisines which make enormous use of rice and gluten are Japanese, Korean, Indian, Persian, French, Spanish, Italian, English, and Mexican. The only hope for people who hate such things is Paleo-Codswallop.
Good luck finding a Paleo-Codswallopian restaurant.
Perhaps there is one in Marin.
Or Berkeley.


I'm heading off to eat in an hour or two.
Guess where I'm going.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================