Salty Fish and Saving Face

I've tender memories of Jia Jia Lok. My first time, I had a dish made more or less of scraps (so my friend told me), a choice delicacy for the unfamiliar Hong Kong palate (i.e., white person). Shanghai noodles is the popular name. White man acclaim is merely its rearticulation. The second time I went it was raining, I had a bowl of congee, and it was love. After that, it was a free for all: spaghetti with Bolognese, spaghetti with a huge steak on top, stir fried mushrooms with rice- surely reminiscent of the earthly flavours of the fungus that grew behind the mountains of Hong Kong, picked by honest, hardworking, calloused hands; cooked with a whole lot of oyster sauce, and a whole lot of Hong Kong cacophony. You know Cantonese people- they're loud. They're not angry. Eating's always a celebration. Maybe that's why I like Jia Jia Lok's so much. Maybe that's why I like the bright orange bristle board menus taped to the place's salmon coloured walls, the old chairs, the lucky cats, the doily curtains, the restaurant's new sign with a smiling, seemingly misplaced dolphin caricature. Why I like the husband and wife duo who've run the place for so long- just like Yuen Wah and Qiu Yuen. They're not yelling at each other; that's love they're speaking. Sure, most of the time it's an order for coca cola. But dig a little deeper. When it's not that, it's Cantonese sweet nothings. For the regular Cantonese diner, it's like a lullaby. I've never minded the lack of television, the lack of music, the surplus shouting. The odd spitting sound here and there would otherwise seem out of place, but I trust the cook.

After four years of neglecting the place, not much had changed (again, except for the sign), and I couldn't have been happier when I came back to visit. I needed something truly Cantonese, truly Hong Kong, I wanted to make a connection. The hostess is never one to deny a patron their choice of meal, no matter how unfamiliar they are with it. In one dive I was turned down a request for cold soup in the winter because my whiteness supposedly couldn't take it. But here, my brevity is always appreciated, as much as my familiar request for a cool glass of yin yang coffee. I wanted to feel like Francis Ng, or Alex Fong, working the beat. It's hot, it's late, I need something with preserve, something salty to match my coffee's bitter sweet.

This time, I opted for something surprisingly more adventurous than I could have guessed. Hong Kong Style Eggplant with Salty Fish. I thought: just stir-fried halibut. Sounds good. But it was better. Not because the portion was deliciously big, not because the fish wasn't a generic, bland white fish- but salty sardines stir-fried with ground pork. But because it was something like I've never eaten in my life. Sure, sure. And I'm talking to you, sole Cantonese reader of this blog. The one who eats stir-fried sardines all the time. I know to you it's nothing. But to me, it was everything. A challenge for face. I've bragged about the kung fu of cooking many times in my life. But the kung fu of eating? Not until this fateful day when the pungent, sea salty aroma of that sauce begged to be mixed with the white rice it covered, and demanded that I eat it with a fork rather than chopsticks (chopsticks aren't really impressive anymore anyway; in my experience, those from Asia only stare because they can't believe I'd even bother eating with chopsticks when utensils are so much more convenient for my bourgeois hands. But I've read Barthes; I can't pierce any anthropomorphized food anymore. All meals have a spirit. Itadakimasu, after all). Never in my life, have I experienced such reflexivity in my food. The meager 8.95 dish humbled me with its face-smashing aroma. I thought I had Asian food down. Apparently I was wrong. Even after I've scraped the flesh off of pig's feet with my teeth, like moss off a rock; even after I've cut up a cow's tongue and stir-fried it with margarine, sugar, oyster sauce and salt, there are still things in this food filled world worth eking out. Even in my own back yard.

Even after all that, and a modest portion of my meal still left, being the stubborn kung foodie that I am. I couldn't lose face. I couldn't let Qiu Yuen down. I told her it was delicious. And asked that it be packed up because I was just too full to finish. Too much coffee and too much tea. Jia Jia Lok was still her dojo (did I just mix cultural metaphors?). And me, the humble student looking to best my old food master. If only I were in Hong Kong right now I could train my palette even harder. Alas, I'll have to live vicariously through Jia Jia Lok's mom and pop duo. Duo of the most sincere, moving, realistic Hong Kong eatery in town (as far as this young master is concerned).

		He's eating beef soup. Just so you know.

Jia Jia Lok
(519) 888-9926
King Street North
Waterloo, ON N2J 4V2 

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The Chinese Soul Food

I'm a little bummed- I saw the cherriest tea set at Bombay over the weekend, and before that a slammin' pair of gold rimmed shot glasses, with the illinist Chinese characters inscribed. I'm sure though whatever it read it referred to some Chinese hotel somewhere in the world, because it certainly didn't say Happy New Year- but then again, how would I know? It was in traditional Chinese, and I can't read traditional Chinese. Point being, I couldn't buy the junk- or, that is, I chose not to buy the junk because mommy wouldn't let me hear the end of it.
So I like novelty. So I like drinkware. So I like feeling like some badass Japanese kid with an uncle in the Yakuza who drinks green tea out of scotch glasses and bobs the tea bag up and down ever so tenderly while talking about my new ride and how it drifts better than animals covered in BP oil. Too soon?

Fantasy is a fun part of eating. I find it plays well to the Bourgeois ethos, and is good for a rainy day, especially when you're bummed and feel like experiencing the ambiance of a Wong Kar-wai flick (Not ANOTHER Wong Kar-wai reference, Weezee). Oh yes, another Wong Kar-wai reference. Because it fits snuggly into this post. And I've waited patiently for the opportunity.

A good requisite for the gastronomicist is at least one underrated, assumed to be overrated, sub-par dish, bought at the same place over and over again for a number of reasons. I know what you're thinkin'. Congee. It's got to be congee. A good guess. I'd expect that assumption, judging by this blog's history. But, contrarily, it has always been a personal dream of mine to find a seat somewhere in this town that serves a bowl of noodles I can run to every time I scrape my knee. Yes, like the lap of some woman, I can come to this particular place and, having bruised my soul, cry away my sorrows in the comfort of some doilied apron which smells an awful lot like a good bowl of noodles.This is what a bowl of noodles does for me. The ultimate comfort food. Perhaps the monolith of all comfort food. No, no. That's a huge claim, and I'm only one man. One lonely, noodle, Wong Kar-wai loving man. This is what comfort food- specifically every person's poster-child comfort food- should do for them. So much so that they need no one to share it with, or at least the most genuine friends. Not some stranger you've just met and started hanging out with; because they won't understand your character enough yet, nor your choice in food. And if food isn't a big part of their life, they definitely won't understand. These are the kinds of people that drink soup broth after a bowl of noodles unawares of the MSG content, and what's more, are so reserved that they have to drink said soup broth with a spoon, rather than putting the bowl's edge to their lips and chugging it, like a Vietnamese kid squatting and slurping in the street. Two strikes. But the third comes when these kinds of people can't appreciate the nuances of a bowl of noodles. They say, "It's not flavourful enough" or "it just tastes like soup", or they have the audacity to compare it to another kind of soup from another kind of place: "Pho's better." Please. Let's not compare apples and oranges, though I'm told they're similar after all. But if you can't appreciate the crispness of the stems of cucumber or the nutty aroma of chili peppers that were first dry roasted in a wok and then chopped and placed in the soup itself along with strips of seaweed and, of all things, whole peanuts, then maybe you're not meant to eat. Maybe you're just meant to not go hungry.

But I don't want to split hairs. Quite frankly, if you're that complacent I'd go so far as to liken you to a kid who spends his days in his grandparents' front yard knocking bird feeders around for pleasure, unaware of what it's like to starve and be greatful to have food. Damned kid. Poor birds. So, dear readers, be leery of these people. They may not be the best dinner company. They're best left to places where the menu wows them with flashy rhetoric and small exploitative, marked up portions featuring tuna prepared three different ways.

Chen's Restaurant (A.K.A. Chen's Oriental Cuisine, A.K.A Orange Restaurant if you want to talk semiotics and signage colour, not to mention the oppressive Saidian use of 'Oriental' and the owner's Asianness, but I'll save that type of analysis for school) isn't anything out of the ordinary, but it's good for a rainy day. Great for a bowl of noodles. My first venture there resulted in my running into a banker explaining to me how the owner (most likely named Chen) felt a need to make authentic Chinese. I was excited. Perusing the menu through the glass I saw the usual: mushroom fried rise, lemon chicken, blah blah blah, as I often say. If anything was authentic, it sure was redundant, and cooks who open up similar places in these parts need to be careful of what they offer, because it's easy to be out cooked, especially if everyone has the same generic things on the menu. Taste may be the only factor in winning a customer, or patriotism, but when Chen's is a new restaurant taking the place of a Mexican restaurant six months prior and a kebab place six months prior to that, patriotism is going to be something difficult to hold at arm's length. But that's just the food, right? The place plays well to the aesthetics of cheeky Chineseness in the West. TV screens on the walls, a buffet behind a sneeze guard glass, lantern hearts in the window, bright warm colours, and imperial tea cups paired with mismatched dinnerware. A novelty I always enjoy in quick fix Chinese food joints. That's one of the reasons I like going to them. The more impoverished and humble the dinnerware, the better I can pretend I'm a 24 year old cop in Hong Kong working the beat and looking for love. That's another Wong Kar-wai reference for ya...
But hey, it all contributes to the character of the space and my delicious bowl of noodles. As the old kung fu saying goes: strong foundation builds high beauty. Restaurants may have existed since the dawn of the city, but there's more to just eating when we go out to eat. For me, it's recreational identity. I like to pretend I know what I'm talking about when I'm eating.
And of course there's the bowl of noodles. Which is the entire point of this entry. If there's anything, in my limited experience of eating at the place, worth checking out Chen's for it's their 5 dollar bowl of noodles- 7 if you want it with meat (beef or pork) and a tea stained egg (which unfortunately, usually comes whole and cold in the centre, but I'm willing to let that slide). You can't miss it. There's a poorly printed photo of it on the window. You just go in and say, "gimme the soup." Learn how to say it in Chinese, impress your non-Chinese friends. This soup, as far as I'm concerned, is Chinese soul food; and maybe I say that because every time I get it I'm a little sad, stressed out, love-lorn (haha, yeah right!), but I've been there several times and haven't tried anything else, maybe because, as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing else worth eating, or nothing else I haven't already had somewhere else. And anyway, where else can I talk Chinese better than someone else- I speak of course about my conversations with the owner's 3 year old kid. He'll catch up, it's just a matter of time. Then I'll really have a reason for feeling sorry for myself, and crying into a big bowl of delicious Chinese noodles.

Chen's Restaurant 

117 University Plaza
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
(519) 729-8226
Mon-Fri 11:00am-11:00pm
Sat 9:00am-11:00pm
Sun closed
 

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ハッピーバースデー!

Yeah, Yeah, I know what you're thinkin'. Everybody who's anybody has been to the Cake Box! (Why does that sound vaguely familiar? Why does vaguely familiar sound vaguely familiar? What can I say? I'm a hack!)

I recall my first experience visiting the Cake Box and feeling exceptionally out of place; I had just finished work, smelt of lime, fish sauce and 7Up, was in ragged, chemical splashed/bleached clothes (God bless kitchens) and was coerced by my eldest sister to tag along in order to pick out a proper colour swatch for a baptismal cake, as well as pleasant party favours that say, "Hey, man, we're Christian, my kid's going to Heaven someday, and he's got good taste in confectionary." It's always a fun novelty when people assume that when you cook, you have an insurmountable amount of knowledge about anything food. I was humble then. Now, I'm a total snob. Not connoisseur, but snob. Connoisseur implies practice, training, mastery; snob entails arrogantly assuming you know everything. I was never really arrogant; but people just stopped believing I wasn't an expert. It must have meant I was kind of an expert. I have lonely Friday nights and interest in food to thank for that.

My first experience with the pastries of the Cake Box was approximately three years ago when my sister had, from some rather wealthy friends I assume, received a birthday care package full of cupcakes from the joint. Everything from rocky road (whatever that really means for flavour) and chocolate mint. It was all down hill from there. But I say that in a good way. I was strung out on those things for days. I acted like it was no big deal, but I'd never tried anything- cakewise- more delicious. When I think of cupcakes I think of over sugared, saturated, usually dried pastries with a rather distinct- that meaning artificial- flavour. What is that artificial flavour you ask? Oh, you know it. Like the Japanese technique of KIME, it's something that must be experienced over and over again, felt by the body, before fully understood. I liken it to those decorative rose flowers put on cakes that kids always try to eat, the ones which are exceptionally chalky and usually give the eater cotton mouth, cut inner cheeks or the rare chipped tooth. That artificiality. The kind that when you first bite into something artificial and overly sweet you think, "Oh goodness, I want more!" And then you eat more and then reflect, Oh God why did I kiss her? I mean, why did I eat that much? You belly-acher, you. Now, I can't speak for the cakes, because I, unfortunately, never did get the chance to try the cake my sister bought, but I did manage to have my way with the typical short-bread-esque decorated cookie. You know? The food in the shape of food? Refer to Barthes. I can't articulate anything anymore, anyway. Where was I? Oh yeah- shortbread cookie on a stick. typical, familiar, not undelicious. But it's the cupcakes I'm after. The cupcakes I have to talk about. Flavours so faithful to the real flavours of the things they imitate, it's uncanny. Eating a chocolate mint cupcake made me wonder what came first, the cupcake or the chocolate and the mint. Was the cupcake the fruit of the chocolate mint tree? The flavours were so poignant, so real that I finally understood the notion and culinary theory of using real ingredients. We say it so often, but are the ingredients we use really "authentic" or genuine. These things made me believe it, or were so good at imitating things like lemons that I'm just another gastronomic dupe.

	Slim pickings.

For $2.25 a pop, I'd rather not know the beautiful (maybe ugly) truth. Yes, the place is pricey; yes, the place plays to the heart of puritans who watch Martha Stewart and believe they can, just by shopping and eating in the space, transform themselves into the idealized hostesses of a Victorian past. Pastels, contemporary furniture, cakes on display like out of bridal magazines, a pleasant all female staff that encourage customers to take pictures of the wonderful displays and edibles they gingerly make- but this is where I launch into a tirade. Because though it is my dream as a man to work at the Cake Box, I never can. Because the confectionary coalition of the Cake Box, I fear, enjoys the gender stereotypes that cater to a nostalgic past. When women were domesticated and therefore the only ones allowed in the culinary space. Pastels, paisley and Rococo are only things a woman can understand; the same goes for marriage, and cakes, and cute-commodified confectionaries like cookie shaped flowers, and tiny little cakes.

At least, this is exactly what I have deduced from visiting the Cake Box since its opening. Or maybe, just maybe, dear readers I'm a little bitter because I've never worked there and probably never will, sadly. Because for me, there is nothing more lovely than waking up, going into a kitchen where sweetness wafts through the air, a cup of French roast waits for me, and baking the most delicious cupcakes, as well as painstakingly putting little silver candy balls on frosted trims, talking about who's dating whom and how much I absolutely love what's going on in the world of celebrity. Oh goodness. But I'm far too manly for that. At least, that's the impression that I get. But I don't want to be too manly. I want to bake, I yearn to bake. Regrettably, I'm doomed to, like so many other customers, sit in the comfy chairs and at the conventional tables of the Cake Box, order an espresso, have a cupcake or two and watch the counter of the five young women who make more of the thing I'm eating that very moment. Like watching the girl you love kiss the guy you hate. That girl, the tenderly decorated cake; that guy, those stupid girls who have my dream job. That and working at Tsukiji as a fish monger. Okay, so I have a lot of dream jobs. But as far as I'm concerned, these kinds of double standards don't fly with me. Shoot. Hiring only women to contribute to an image, or make a space seem more welcoming. Phhh. They don't even say hello when you come in. They just look up and rock paper scissors to see who's gonna be the unlucky one to take the next order. If it were my place, I'd force them to all say hello; and if they didn't, like some English lady of the house I'd say, "say 'hello' girls." And then the girls would say, "Hello girls" and we'd all have a laugh. That's at least welcoming. But I'm not insinuating anything. I just hope I'm wrong and places don't hire based on ridiculous prejudices, not in the great equal West anyway. No way. My maleness can't work against me. Absolutely not. That's crazy. It's probably for the best I don't work at the place anyway. I'd eat the owner out of house and home. Literally; I heard they live on the upper floor of the cake shop.

At least, like some sad Bourgesian character I can go, buy a cupcake once in a while, put it in a nice little package, give it to a friend for their birthday, and live vicariously through the girls who tenderly package it for me.

All in all, the Cake Box isn't a bad place, not in the least. I can't say I've found a better place with more delicious cupcakes in the entire city. Pricey but expected. It keeps the unserious customers out. But this is at least one place that lives up to the old cliché that you get what you pay for.

So that's that. Yes, it's been around for a while, it does well, and there's probably been a billion other pieces written about. But none from this fella's mouth. None this real like the city it's situated in (Oh? Don't get the allusion? Guess you're not a fan then), none this honest; and for that, I make no apology (why does THAT sound vaguely familiar too?).

The Cake Box271 King Street West
Kitchener, ON N2G 1B1
(519) 579-6230
 

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