Dragons!

After a long hiatus, Bird is back blogging belligerently about the life and times out here in NYC.

First on the agenda today I would like to speak a little bit about food. Wait! Come back! I promise this will not be done in the style of our beloved Dan; rather, I need to extend a serious warning regarding eating free Chinese food without first ingesting a special drink I like to call ‘alcohol.’ A short preface: the hospital I work for (NY Methodist) had purchased a table at a fundraising event for the Brooklyn Chinese Association’s somethingth anniversary. I was invited to join in the festivities because I am awesome (or really, really hated… this has yet to be determined). Upon arrival at the Chinatown restaurant (in Manhattan… the theory is that the BCA was kicked out of Brooklyn) we were promised free (!) drinks and some good food. Instead, what we were given was:

1. the option of $2 beer (who pays for beer?!)
2. room temperature Coke and Sprite and
3. a hassle when we asked for some ice water

Not the best of beginnings, I would say. Fine. We endured the off-key warbling of many Chinese songs, both by children and by the very elderly. We were wowed by the dance of the dragons, even as they trampled our coats on their way by. We sat through all of the announcements and congratulatory toasts (to which we raised our luke-warm soda, as the ice water was MIA)…all in English and then in the Chinese translation. But we were stoic, determined to get some free food out of this if it killed us. Or we killed that dragon, which was a distinct possibility at this point of the evening.

We made the best of it, chatting and laughing about the craziness of the circumstances and continually eyeing the menu, which promised some tasty sounding dishes, accompanied by the Chinese translation, of course. And then it happened: the first course! According to the menu we were about to embark on the culinary adventure known as “cold-cut platter.” To our relief, it was served on a platter. Unfortunately, what was occupying the platter was significantly less appealing than the platter itself:

1. Duck tongue
2. Tripe
3. whole, creepy, glowing-eyed squid (one of which I promptly dropped into my neighbor’s Coke)

Now, had we been able to read the Chinese translation of the contents of this course, we would have been spared the subsequent groaning, looks of disgust and stomach churning. It is speculated that the actual translation was something to the effect of “Eat at your own risk! Food not suitable for human consumption! But you can’t read this so HA-HA!”

The next fifty courses (or so it seemed) were pretty much inedible, as well. We were able to stave off our hunger by pillaging the vegetables from each new dish and by making food art. Although my friend Lorelei was really creeped out by the head of the whole fried chicken, so I had to contain the beast within one of those really nice, red Chinese money envelopes. You’ve stared your last stare, chicken.

So this sounds pretty bad, but there was one redeeming factor: cake. It was delicious, but not worth the wait. Or the post-traumatic stress. OH! How could I forget? We were also given “goodie” bags complete with a bag of frozen dumplings, a Chinese newspaper and a coupon for $10 off our next visit to Dr. Wong, Ophthalmologist. Sweet.

This ends our epic journey through the world of food; I can almost guarantee Dan will write the next food blog, because it’s really his baby and I have interfered enough. Cheers!