PORK CHOPS OVER RICE ARE A METAPHOR FOR ...

On Tuesday I snacked at a bakery on Stockton Street. On Wednesday dinner was at a bakery on Pacific. Both bakeries are also chachanteng, meaning that they have Hong Kong style milk-tea and a selection of hot dishes from the kitchen. Rice plates, spaghetti or macaroni with something, legitimately Chinese noodles, fried rice, and stuff cooked in fry pans in the manner of the white folks but not intended for the white folks because white folks are quite baffled by that stuff.

[What do chachanteng serve? Things like these: 鮮茄牛肉午餐肉煎蛋通粉 Macaroni with fried egg and luncheon meat in tomato sauce. 餐肉菠蘿包 Toasted pineapple bun with butter and luncheon meat. 公司三文治 Club Sandwich. 焗茄汁雞飯 Baked chicken rice with tomato sauce. 蕃茄豬扒意粉 Pork chop with tomato sauce over spaghetti. 銀芽肉絲煎麵 Pork with bean sprouts pan fried noodle. 牛腩湯麵 Beef brisket noodle soup. 雞絲通粉類 Chicken macaroni. 餐肉蛋公仔麵 Spam and fried egg instant noodle. 滑蛋蝦球飯 Scrambled egg with shrimp over rice. 枝竹羊腩飯 Lamb stew with tofu skin over rice. 咸魚雞粒炒飯 Salt fish and chicken fried rice.]


Tuesday's place is more likely to see white folks wander in, look in bafflement at the baked items because the ONLY thing resembling a cheese Danish has clearly visible scallion and ham, and there are other things which are entirely un-identifiable despite English names -- mo mo chong, and pork floss bun -- bleat a few questions, moo, and block the aisle. Really, most white people should just resolve to get the egg tart and escape. Instead of occupying time and space in groups of three to six.
The Pacific Avenue place is mercifully untainted by tourists.
Except for the occasional Mandarin speaker.


Disclaimer: this blogger honestly likes white people. They are so nice. Some of my best friends are white, no lie. As are all of my blood kin, seeing as I am so very white that I glow in the dark myself.
But when they're slumming, they're a nuisance.
And somewhat irritating.


蕃茄豬扒飯
Faan ke chyu baa faan

Oro nasip makaean enti lengkip. Without cooked rice, it isn't a meal

I had a real yen for tomato pork chop rice. The meat consisted of two thin peppered cuts on the bone, panfried with a little onion, then generously augmented with chopped tomato to simmer briefly in the pan juices. Served with a mound of rice. It was delicious. Dinner came with a bowl of very good soup, and a dinner roll with a pat of butter. Along with a hot cup of milk tea the total bill for a full meal came to eleven fifty.

And holy jayzus was it good.

[Smoked my pipe for nearly an hour afterwards, watching cheeky little sparrows on the street behind Portsmouth Square. Nice weather, light late outside, and at times interesting fellow wanderers.]

Indeed, I could have had this at home. But I don't use our kitchen as much as I should, because my apartment mate cooks for her culinarily impaired and wheel-chair bound boyfriend two or three evenings a week -- often inconveniently on my working days, when I don't have the chance to go down to C'town -- and usually I have to wait several hours to prepare myself noodles or choi po fan.

My apartment mate acts irritated but self-controlled when I enter the kitchen while she's busy. It's obvious that she's pissed, and fervently wishes I wouldn't do that.

Her cooking is a stressful experience for me.
I am sometimes a bit resentful.
But whatever.



Last night she cooked a delicious green pasta dish for her boyfriend, with fresh basil, mushrooms, and herbs. Enough for at least four or five meals.
It was quite the production, and the kitchen was off-limits till after ten.

Darn good thing that I ate already, earlier.




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