THE PARADIGM IS COVERED IN CHEESE

When the waitress came I panicked. And consequently ended up with two loin cutlets on top of a mound of delicate egg-fried rice, with melted cheese and white sauce on top. It was very good, but I had not intended to eat something so cheesy. In a Chinese restaurant.
The soup was tomato vegetable, the bread was garlic.

The only thing I said in English was that I preferred to sit where I could see the television, because I could not remember the word for television in Cantonese. It does not come up in conversation, you understand. Back-constructing from "television station" (電視臺 'din si toi'), it is 'deen see'.
But that didn't come to me till later.
After the cutlets.


焗豬柳飯

Careful, plate hot. Which indeed it was. In some places that serve 焗豬柳飯 ('guk chyu lau faan'), the dish is liberally doused with stewed tomato or tomato sauce in addition to the cheese, but these people are minimalists. Their version of soy-sauce western is a more intellectual and spare approach, and they feel that if you wanted your loins covered with 番茄醬 you would have asked for it; 茄汁焗豬柳飯 ('ke jap guk chyu lau faan'). Which isn't standard, because normally that would be chops instead. Chops. Chops get tomato.
Not loins. Loins equal cheese.


As I said, I wasn't in the mood for so much cheese -- it was 厚厚的芝士！('hou hou dik chi si!'; "generously cheesed") -- but I enjoyed my meal immensely, and dawdled after to see the end of the episode where 表姑姑 (the comedic plumpish person) and her friend Dr. Blue (a very whitey-white blonde woman) have to deal with a ghostly presence. I think it's from the series 老表，你好嘢, featuring among other actors Corinna Chamberlain (陳明恩 ''Chan Ming Yan'). It is a very silly show. But amusing.


One of these days I'll have to get up early enough on a day off that I can have breakfast there. The early specials fascinate me. All for breakfast only, and only if you read Chinese. Probably because printing it out in clear and precise characters is actually much easier than figuring out what white people might call it in English.

Assuming that they grasped the paradigm.

Which really isn't cheese.


特別早餐 Breakfast Specials.

吉列魚扒雙蛋 Fish cutlet and two eggs.
吉列豬扒雙蛋 Pork cutlet and two eggs.
吉列鷄扒雙蛋 Chicken cutlet and two eggs.

香煎韭菜豬肉餃子 Pan-fried chive-pork dumplings.
香煎椰菜豬肉餃子 Pan-fried cabbage-pork dumplings.
上湯韭菜豬肉餃子 Chive-pork dumpling in soup.
上湯椰菜豬肉餃子 Cabbage-pork dumpling in soup.

蠔油豬肚湯麵 Oyster sauce pig stomach soup noodles.
蠔油豬肚米粉 Oyster sauce pig stomach rice vermicelli.
蠔油豬肚河粉 Oyster sauce pig stomach rice stick.
蠔油豬肚瀨粉 Oyster sauce pig stomach laaifun.
蠔油豬肚公仔麵 Oyster sauce pig stomach insta-noodle.


Yumminess.



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