Friday, May 06, 2005

Every day is a winding road

Lunch at a Korean place (with exactly one vegetarian dish on the menu) with a Chinese colleague. A bewildering array of side dishes in addition to the main course. Seaweed sounds icky, but it tastes pretty good. Actually, I don't know if it was seaweed, but it looked suspiciously like a more solid version of the algae you see in cess-pools in the rainy season in India. I was too preoccupied with eating to ask. (I did manage to ask for some dish on the menu with 'no meat and no seafood').

My clumsy efforts at using chopsticks were viewed with bemusement by Tao (that's his name). I was making a valiant effort nonetheless. After all, that was how I mastered eating the proper way with a knife and fork - eating uttappams and masala dosas at the local Udipi that way. Taking pity on me, he finally showed me the right way of holding the chopsticks. My finger-joints protested. They'd never quite been asked to move that way, leave alone lift morsels of food.

Unfortunately, the food wasn't all that great. I've eaten better Asian food - I am partial to Thai food, though there's this awesome Sichuanese place in Bellevue. But I did have the great satisfaction of learning the Tao of eating with chopsticks from the master - Tao himself.

Sorry. Couldn't resist that.

3 comments:

Schrodinger said...

Chopsticks were a nightmare for me too!!
The first time I was put to use them were at Chia Ming in Pune, in the company of someone who loves chinese food and further loves the act of teaching her date to use chopsticks!

Though I managed eating rice with them, I ended up moaning about my fingers for 2 days!!

Anonymous said...

I enjoy eating with chopsticks...gives me a chic look

Ajay said...

Yes, the chopstick-users do appear sophisticated and worldly.