Crummy but Goody - don't tell my Mom!

Eating is a universal pastime.  If we are not eating, we are surely drinking something. I work with someone who is chewing at least six hours of her day. She works and eats at the same time. At lunch time, she would come with me even if she just finished her “breakfast.”  I am not saying it like it is a bad thing - never!

I have a rather eclectic repertoire where cooking is concerned.  As a young immigrant, I did not know how to cook the foods I grew up with. I knew how to cook rice but that was all I could muster.  One day, I was craving “sinigang,” the ubiquitous Filipino sour broth dish. Sinigang is equivalent to the Thai’s shrimp soup with tart tamarind, Cayman’s fish tea (which I suspect was a concoction by the Filipinos who migrated to the Cayman Islands.) In any case, I knew that sinigang has at least basic four elements:  meat or fish, tartness, tomatoes, and water.  I decided that I would make mine pork sinigang.  The problem is that in the early 1970’s, Mama Sita was not in the U.S. markets yet.  I had a brilliant substitution! I opened a jar of pickles and put them in the broth.  Ok, cancel the movie in your mind. 

Later on, I added adobo to my list.  In a week’s time, I would alternate pork, chicken, even beef adobo with sinigang (at this point, I was told to use lime or lemon for variety) with lots of bok choy.  These days, I grill a lot and I stock Mama Sita mix like nobody’s business, for those special Filipino gatherings.  One time, my husband (HB) exclaimed, “Oh is this chicken bistek?” Oh yes, he married a Pinay alright and he knows my Filipino dishes by smell. 

In any case, in our household used to be a little boy.  He used to make faces when I would take him with me to the Asian stores. Asian stores has the pungent but oh so familiar and dear to  Filipinos' sense of smell, minus the maddeningly wetness of an honest-to-goodness  only Anthony Bourdain can-get-excited- about farmer’s market in Quezon City.  We sat down with him and told him that it is not always like the United States anywhere he goes. We told him to expect less than ideal when we travel.  During one of those travels is what I want to share:

We were going to conclude our long, hot, wonderful China trip by stopping in Hong Kong for a few days. We ate well and shopped well while in China, seeing the terra cotta warriors in Xian, the beautiful gardens in Shang-Hai and Zhou-shou, and falling in like with GuiLin and touring the sights of Beijing.   During our first night in Shang-Hai, we went to a restaurant where neither we nor they understood each other.  They decided what we should eat. They gave my son a plate of ravioli, a hamburger, egg rolls, and milk. They gave me soup and noodles and they gave HB a sandwich, soda, and ravioli, and a green salad of lettuce and carrots.

So now we are in Hong Kong and HB told me that a Chinese secretary in his firm’s HK office will take us to the best restaurant in all of Hong Kong.  We were staying at the HK Peninsula and I was sure that  Suen will take us somewhere fancy. All I had in terms of an outfit for the best restaurant in HK is a pair of capris, a pair of heeled flip flops, which I kept hiding from the Pen staff during high tea, and a nice summer top. I just hoped I would be admitted to the best HK restaurant  looking like I did.

We met Suen and her boyfriend at Central. There was a big show of haute couture on the super giant screen.  Designer shops all over,  it was  teeming with women carrying their Louis Vuitton’s and  Gucci purses,  cell phones, pumps and suits, and smart watches, men in suits, and casually dressed HongKongers that looked like a million bucks. We had our own share of tailor made suits delivered to our hotel.  At this time,  I felt like an impostor and a derelict, headed to eat the best dinner of the trip. I have not reached the point of travelling in my own private plane with my Louis Vuitton suitcases and a personal sytlist.  Furthermore, I was not idiotic enough to pay $150 for a pair of Nine West sandals in Hongkong for something I can pay for a third in the USA. So there I was in the middle of HK fabulosity, looking like an ugly duckling in migration.

There was another couple with us – a young Korean American lawyer from New England and his American life partner. Suen told us to follow her. We were walking along sidewalks and then we were blocks away from the Center.  Now I was seeing local joints – all kinds of merchandise being sold in little variety stalls and suddenly she stopped in front of a literal hole in the wall.  We followed her inside the dingy place.

The “cook,” wearing a wife-beater’s shirt and old flip flops and shorts, was busy deep frying something outside the restaurant.  It smelled good. We followed Suen in silence.  We sat down.  The tablecloth was made of flimsy plastic, the kind that one can find in a Dollar Store. There were no napkins.  My son was quiet.  I passed around some Kleenex to everyone.  The cook came to clear the table. He was holding a plastic bucket. I could see the mud on the bottom of the pail while the cook cleared our table.  The place was very hot and very noisy.  The Chinese are very animated people. There was a round of wine going on the next table and the rest of the guests were just boisterous and happy.  We were talking loudly ourselves.  My son was very quiet but not sullen.  My husband was being very good at not showing any emotion. I wanted to run away but I did not.  Instead we talked about each other’s visit to mainland China.  This is a place where you will have to insist on drinking only canned or bottled soda, delivered to your table still corked. It was sort of dark save for some lightbulbs over the tables. 

Then the food started coming out – some mussel looking seafood with tails that look like milky worms. Delicious!  It was followed by succulent dish after another.  Savory! Then a fish head perched on a dish with mushrooms and scallions was brought to the table.  I took a look at my son and his eyes averted mine.  The Gringos were looking at the fish’ eyes uncomfortably.  Then our Korean American friend spoke, “In my culture, the fish head is reserved for the honored guests.  The fish head is the meatiest part of the fish.”  I do not remember who actually went for the fish eyes but I would have probably not hesitated if Mr. Kim Park has not already done so.  Then a platter of beautiful jade green vegetable was put on the table and Suen explained, “This is a very special kind of cabbage found only in the summer.” I took one look and I said, “Oh, I am familiar with this cabbage. It is called kang-kong in Filipino.”  She was pleased that I know what it was.  We ate every dish we were served with gusto.  They were piping hot and focusing on the food made us all forget that we were in glitzy Hongkong but in a dingy restaurant on a side street only the locals knew about.

As soon as the dinner was over we all prepared to leave.  Any thoughts of capuccinos were out of the question obviously.  I asked to go back to Central.  It was out of our way but it was nearer to go there than back to the hotel. When my HB asked me why, I told him that I needed to use the bathroom.  Suen said, “They have a bathroom here, it is over there.”  I looked at her and with all the diplomacy I could muster I said, “Oh, thanks Suen but I would rather go to Central.”  She did not say anything, she just told us where to catch the tram.

Back at the hotel, I thanked my HB for taking us to dinner and I thanked my son for being a trouper.  Then I continued carefully, “You know, I really appreciate the dinner.  As it is, I was born and raised in Manila but If my parents were alive today and I'd tell them  about going to eat at that restaurant where Suen took us, they would not permit me to go. They will tell me that I will catch cholera in that place and I would have risked my child’s health by taking him too.”

My HB said he understood.  Months later, I saw the lawyer who was instrumental in having Suen from the Hong Kong office take us to the infamous hole in the wall. He saw me by Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Hi Munam, I am so sorry!”

-Hi Mark, what are you sorry for?”

“Scott told me that your parents would not have allowed you to into that restaurant in Hong Kong I suggested to him,  that you would contract cholera.”

I felt ungrateful and my thought at that moment was that if cholera would not kill my HB, I would have killed him with that fish head for opening his big mouth!

-Oh, but see we all survived and the food was excellent.

“Do you mean it?”

-I mean it.

I MEANT IT.