Chopstick Lessons Part I

I have a day job. I serve people over priced Asian food at a “bistro” in metropolitan Boston. There’s a sushi bar and a wall that is a stone fountain. The typo peppered menu of decent asian favorites ranging from phở to pad thai and from crispy curry duck to kimchi steak is tiring to read but does somehow manage to hide the actual similarity of all the dishes. The restaurant could do a lot better if it stopped trying to be fine dining in the midst of so much glam and glitz of its neighborhood. The money saved on running the fountain alone would be enough to cover a bus boy’s pay twice over. Nix the bad asian techno, the leather-bound menu pretense, the bottle of Johny Walker Blue no one ever touches and the insane mark up on simple dishes like lo-mein and it could even be considered a gem.

Critique aside I like it. The cast that runs the place is as colorful as any motley crew. Staffed by Chinese cooks in the kitchen, an Indonesian and two Vietnamese managers and bussers and servers that hail from all over Asia not a day goes by where something interesting doesn’t happen. If the Vietnamese sushi chef and Chinese kitchen chef need to communicate they do so in english –which neither of them speak more than a few hundred words of. I may not be able to understand the words under the thick accents all the time but they seem to and for the most part things seem to run pretty smoothly. This kind of english-bridged conversation takes place constantly and I can’t help but derive joy from the awkwardness it creates.

Another quirk to the job is the blatantly obvious fact that I am the only caucasian employee. This can sometimes lead to humorous situations, and well yes, plenty of awkward moments.

My first day on the job we sat down at nine to eat a family style dinner of spicy chicken pieces in nameless sauce over rice with stir-fried vegetables on the side. A waitress who had been training me came out to hand us each utensils and deliver condiments to the table. She out stretched her arm one at a time, handing red sleeves of bamboo to each person. Chop stick, chop stick, chop stick, fork, chop stick, chop stick.

“Damn!” I thought. “ye have little faith.” I didn’t say anything, I may have grumbled under my breath a little but I just got up and got myself some chop sticks. I guess I couldn’t blame her for thinking whitey would prefer a fork. When I sat back down I doused my rice with a good portion of sriracha to spice up my food. The waitress looked first at my bowl, then at me, “You like spicy!?!?” she asked shocked.

“Damn!” I thought again, “Stereotypes are a bitch!”

I proceeded to add even more sriracha and chili oil just for good measure. I was determined to nip these false assumptions in the bud from day one. I also drank what seemed like 48 glasses of water that night. So they may know I can use chop sticks and can handle or even prefer spicy food but they probably also think I have a bladder problem.

To be continued…

-Raw