Four Seasons Hot Pot and Dumplings.
A wave of nostalgia hit me as I prepared my colon for the fiery poops that would surely ensue.
For those of you who don't know, hot pot is a Chinese cooking method in which they basically leave a giant pot of boiling broth on the table into which you dump all of the things you want to cook (beef, chicken, unidentifiable meat, veggies, unidentifiable veggies, noodles, etc.). You can usually also decide to have the pot divided in half, in which half is a regular broth, and the other half is a broth frothing with foreign spices glowing bright red that begin to eat away at the pot itself. Since it's so hard to decide which, you get to have both (Which means you also get to decide which kind of poop you'll have later. JUST KIDDING. Because you only get fire poops). *
Some really fancy hot pots have people that come out and do the noodle dance for you. No, not the PB&J otter noodle dance, but where they swing a giant noodle through the air to stretch it out and then subsequently throw it into your pot (Here if one if you want to see it). It's a frightening process because sometimes they pretend to try and hit you in the face.
I walked into the restaurant and it was like a little piece of China had been plucked away from the homeland. Or, you know, a Chinese family opened a restaurant in the middle of a large college city. It was humid and smelled like, well, every restaurant in China (which can best be described as spicy with a hint of raw meat). There was the familiar bar of foods: raw meatballs, raw shrimp, raw...blocks of white stuff--you know, all the essentials. I scooped up what I wanted and plopped it into the bubbling pot.
Since the four of us at the table had all been to China at one point or another, we started to play the, "Do you remember when...?" game.
"Do you remember when mushrooms grew in our bathroom?"
"Do you remember when that taxi driver tried to charge us 100 quay to go two blocks?"
"Do you remember when wouldn't pay for our internet for days and decided that indoor heating wasn't totally essential?"
Oh, I remembered. While a lot of things didn't happen to me personally, usually some kind of variation did. Part of me expected that after the dinner ended, I would hop onto a bus filled to the doors with people and a baby peeing on the floor.
"Do you remember when you ate a popsicle that had red beans inside it?"
It was funny; while most of the memories were seemingly negative things (like a man throwing up on me), they were somehow slightly endearing in my mind. They were those little gems of my life that I had experienced in a foreign place that most people don't understand unless you've lived there.
"Do you remember the skinned animal faces at walmart?"
While I had a lot of hard times in China, I had a lot good times too. I saw amazing sights and met some of the kindest people. Mostly I learned how to try and laugh at a situation that looked pretty grim and shitty. There were days when I putting a smile on my face as I walked out the apartment building into the smog and past the smells of the sewer coming from who knows where, was all that got me through the day. Now I get to look back at that accomplishment.
"Do you remember when our toilet spit up sewage into our apartment?"
Out meal ended about the same time a new couple had entered the restaurant and were preparing to ready their ingredients in the pot, looking a little confused.
"Just dump it all in." I leaned over and told them.
They followed my instructions only to be chastised by our Chinese host. He descended upon them telling them that certain items should go in first and what goes where and blah blah blah. I tried not to make any more eye contact with them seeing as how their first Chinese experience was ruined and I was the culprit.
"Do you remember when you ruined that couple's dinner?"
I do. Really I just wanted to pat them on the back and reassure them that this was the authentic experience. Taking advice from a stranger, dumping everything in, and hoping for the best.
No, really, just have a try. Have a try.
*If you're wondering where the dumplings are in this story, I was too. We asked our host where the dumplings were (since they were so clearly explained in the SIGN OF THE RESTAURANT) and he informed us that his aunt had moved back to China and she was the one who made the dumplings. Apparently, she had left no recipe, taught no one else, and had decided not to change the sign.
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