HALF A DOZEN CUPS OR MORE

Do you want it crispy-crunchy or soft and chewy? These are questions which, as a pudgy non-Chinese teenage person, you might wish to ask yourself before placing your order. Or more likely not, seeing as the chicken feet are offered for sale in non-English. The tangy ones have a crisp coating, the savoury ones and the hot and spicy feet look like they have the regular stewy texture. But you went in for a nice cold matcha taro boba tea with sguiggly jellies added, or some such crap, and you really aren't interested in anything else there except the popcorn shrimp and chicken nuggets.

You really should try those chicken feet.
A good dietary source of collagen.
They're great for your skin.

I myself have never eaten there. Places filled with giddy teenagers hepped on sugar just don't appeal to me, but I read the foods mini-poster advertised in the window with great interest after we left a nearby drinking establishment. As one would. If the picture is appealing and one can read Chinese. As, naturally, one can.

The place where I had eaten lunch several hours before does not have boba drinkies. They have claypot rice. Which on a cold day like today precisely hit the spot. My yellow eel claypot rice (黃鱔煲仔飯 'wong sin pou jai faan') was divine. Dab of chilipaste each bite. Gorgeous.

It is mentioned in English on the menu, probably because there are a few local old-school Toishanese American-borns who don't really read Chinese, but I suspect that there are not a whole lot of non-Cantonese who order it. Almost certainly no Mandarin speakers.
Who, like most Caucasians, are missing out.

Drank an entire big pot of tea.
Ended up plenty wired.

A person from the Netherlands or Belgium who likes 'paling' would be well-advised to search it out. Might be the best meal you have in the United States. Change your whole impression of the place. There is good stuff to eat here after all!

Naturally I smoked my pipe afterwards while wandering down several blocks to a bus stop in the Financial District.


In the evening I was back in Chinatown waiting for the bookseller. This is the beginning of his weekend, and it doesn't sound like he has any pressing plans. He strained or bruised his leg playing pinball, it's going to be rather cold for the next week or so, and world cup matches very likely will keep him at home.

The karaoke place sounded problematic as we passed. Some kind of yodeling. Painful, like a tortured marketing department female. Life is too short for such self-abuse.

On the route to the bus stop after drinks at the other place we became aware of a man yelling a play by play of his progress up the street on the opposite side.

Sometimes waiting for the bus at night is the longest ten minutes of your life.
Cold winds, skeevy blisters, and testimony about Jesus.



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