SALT FISH EGGPLANT RICE -- HAAHM YÜ KE JI FAAN

One of the most interesting things I heard this week was that someone had learned his unaccented English in the Sacramento County Jail. If they just added reading and writing to their curriculum, people would flock there, or send the kids. Especially useful, one would think, for folks from the rest of our country.

On the one hand, I am not so sure of that. Despite clear text, like on the front of the bus AND at the stop itself, visitors from "Elsewhere US" still ask stupid questions.


Which, of course, is why so much is not written in their language. Doing so is useless. "Is there", they will ask, "gluten in this tasty baked product?"
To which the correct answer is either "whut" or "go away".


No animals were harmed making this hamburger.


As you can tell, the tourist season is upon us. And travelers from the other side of the Sierras are swarming the city. Bless them.


WE HAVE NO BANANAS!

So naturally on both of my days-off I ended up in establishments where the tourists quite often fear to enter, because their bafflement is a barrier.
They recognize nothing, and do not wish to experiment.

One of the wall-specials caught my eye, salt fish eggplant rice, so I ordered it for lunch; 鹹魚茄子飯 ('haahm yü ke ji faan'). It was delicious and fragrant, and adding hot sauce made it more so. While I ate an entire family from lord-knows-where came in, looked around, looked confused, and departed. Followed by a blonde woman in shorts (same general result), a large man who asked if they had hot dogs (no, sorry), and five very tan kids with their older sister, who all observed everything with great fascination, twittered, and left.

Maybe a plane just landed. Refugees from Miz'pi or Kay'liner.
Or, gorelpus, Abama. Poor bastards.
Flurda?

Fortunately the waitress knows me, because she was getting fed up with White People, as, and perhaps you instinctively realized this by now, was I.
Stop staring at my food, okay?!?

Folks, if you are not going to spend any money, please keep out. The happy diners with plates of food in front of them are not a tourist attraction, except perhaps where you come from. The food is awful there, we know.
And we're very sorry about that.

By the way, we have Kung Pao, General Tso, and Sweet 'n Sour.
These are on the menu for your convenience.
We know that's what you eat.

No Crab Rangoon.

Eggrolls!


San Francisco is also filled with Italians and Dutch people right now.
Nope, not going to say a darn thing about that.




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