Chinese food

So we made it to a "real" Chinese restaurant on Saturday night. And we think it's actually a pretty decent one because it came recommended by a few Chinese people and we were the only white people in the restaurant (except for the business men having dinners) and there was a wedding banquet going on. Not bad, we decided, clearly not an expat place. And lucky for us there were pictures on the menu!
So here are the two differences between American Chinese food and real Chinese food. The first is that in America we disguise our food so you can't really tell where it came from. It's just in perfect little squares. Here, there is no disguising it. If it is chicken, it still looks like chicken when it comes to the table (i.e. bones and wings, and not just the big bones, all the little bones that are in the wing). If it is fish, the whole thing is there on the plate, head, tail, fins, bones. There is no doubt about what animal you are eating.

The second thing is that my mouth and hands are not talented enough to eat real Chinese food! Large pieces of chicken or fish come on the plate and they can't be cut up with chopsticks. And they are not supposed to be cut up. You're supposed to put the whole piece in your mouth, get the meat off the bones, and then spit the bones out when you're done. Do you have any idea how hard that is for an untrained mouth? Chinese people put entire chicken wings in their mouth and chew and magically spit out the bones! It's a sight to behold. And it's also a skill I just do not have. I am going to have to practice this a lot to be able to eat real Chinese food.

And the last big difference is that rice and noodle come as the last dish of the dinner here. Rice and noodles are considered the "filler". They are what you eat if you are still hungry after everything else is eaten. So for my kids, who are kind of waiting for the noodles & rice during the entire meal, this is a bit challenging. I'm going to have to learn to ask for rice at the beginning of the meal, which will be difficult because it's considered fairly rude to ask for it then. Luckily there are some vegetables they can eat with soup spoons before the rice and noodles finally arrive.

All in all it was a tasty, if not frustrating, meal. And I can finally say "yes, we have eaten real Chinese food." :)