BEFORE ALL THE FRIED STUFF

Good food, nice people running the place. No wonder I've been there a score of times since it opened. But I suspect that this Saturday evening they may be in for madness. The reason being it's right close to the parade route, and when you have half a million plus suburbanites flocking into the neighborhood, you will be asked innumerable times for sweet and sour pork, eggrolls, and shrimp fried rice. Kung pao thingy, and General Tzo's whatchamacallit.


What do you mean, no kung pao or General Tzo?

And no sweet and sour at all?

Dumplings.


What they do is dumplings. White suburbanite family groups look askance at dumplings. Anything battered, deep-fried, and served with a sticky sweet and salty sauce is more in demand than dumplings. Little blond kiddiewinkies want the familiar taste of deep hinterland Chinese food that they're familiar with if they absolutely have to watch a cultural enriching parade. Plus a corn-syrup carbonated beverage.

People go nuts.

The dumplings where absolutely divine. Steamed pork and sour pickled cabbage dumplings (酸菜豬肉水餃 "suan cai zhu rou shui jiao"). Dee-licious! Lip-smackety!
Suan cai is rather like sauerkraut.


Pipe with flake aftewards, walking down through the financial district. One or two weirdos. An office woman having a cigarette around the corner from her building entryway. A late-lunching man at a table outside an eatery. No shoppers. A skateboarder.

Bus back across the hill before twilight.



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