I got called in to the restaurant at the last minute to do a shift, so I had to find a fast convenient place to go eat on the way there -- it's bad to show up for service while hungry if you won't be able to eat when you come in, you'll end up snacking for hours. I was going through Chinatown, not in the mood for my regular vegetarian dim sum. Along Mott, there are the old restaurants that have been there forever, with a classic Americanized menu for the tourists. 'Big Wong' had a name that said, "Hey, if you go here, you can write "BIG WONG" all over your blog today!" -- definitely not the best way to choose a restaurant, but hey, the menu was cheap, so I bet the turn over was fast.
And it was. I had my first dish seconds after I ordered and my bill before finishing my meal. I think this was the way all Chinese restaurants used to be, particularly in the 70s. Big portions, cheap, harried, a bit dank, and funky of flavor. The first item I got was "fresh" shrimp wrapped in rice dough, but literally feet away from me I saw the waitress pop it out of the microwave. The shrimp was definitely a bit tough. The wonton soup was filled to the brim with pork/shrimp dumplings, at least 12 of them, and the broth was pleasingly/oddly gamy -- I imagine they must use EVERY bit of meat in their dishes, and the really scary unusable stuff....goes into making the broth! My main noodle dish, which was under $7, was enough for two people....and after that huge bowl of wontons, could only get through half of it. Am I glad I went? Yes. Did I enjoy my meal? Sure. Will I go back? Not any time soon.
Yesterday's weiner schnitzel brought back some strong parental memories. In the mid-nineties, me and my parents took our first and (now it turns out) last big trip as a family unit together. As my parents aged, they were never big on travel -- too expensive, too uncomfortable. (With my encouragement, they took a couple of cruises in the early 2000s, thank goodness, but that was without me...thank goodness!) We flew to England, London, stayed in Kensington, saw a bunch of my friends, travelled to a friend's for dinner up North, was really nice. Then we took a plane over to Vienna, where my father was born.
This was my second time there, the first time was in the early 90s as a student with a rucksack. I remembered all the pastry shops there, which my father remembered fondly and was undoubtedly the ground work for his diabetes later in life. We visited where he was born, where he grew up, the bench along the Danube River where he remembered "NO JEWS" painted on them. It never occurred to the three of us to bring a camera, that's how out of practice we were with exotic vacationing. (Fortunately, a friend had a camera when they visited, and my 2 pictures from that vacation are some of my most treasured possessions.)
The best time the three of us had in Vienna was probably when we went to some generic local restaurant for weiner schnitzel. Weiner schnitzel is simply a pork cutlet that is hammered out flat, breaded and deep fried to crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside -- not so far from fried chicken in concept, thought the spicing and presentation is very different. It was served, as it was last night, with a German potato salad, a little cooked shredded red cabbage, and a little cucumber salad. The food was good, we relaxed in the restaurant, pausing to appreciate where we were and let it enter our bodies. These were pre-Euro days, and there was something like 3,385 Austrian marks to the US dollar. My father, being my father, paid for the meal. As we were down the street from the spot, we calculated my dad left about 17 cents in tip on an 80 dollar bill. He felt horrible, but me and my mom refused to let him go back -- they don't really tip in Europe anyway, and even so, will we ever be back there? But really, me and mom just wanted an excuse to tease him, which we did for, oh, on regular occasions until the day he died!
Weiner Schnitzel was a food my dad grew up with, and eating it with him in the place he was born was a treat and an honor, and I'm glad I got to do it. Weiner Schnitzel will never just be a hammered pork chop to me.
BREAKFAST: 6:45am, banana, pint of apple cider, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
AM SNACK: 10am, marble pound cake, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
I was hoping the pint of juice would of calmed me, but no. I know, I know, I feel like a broken record, I need to motivate.
PM SNACK: 2pm, olive oil torta, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH: 4:15pm, singapore chow mei fun, wonton soup, 'fresh' shrimp in rice crepe, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
PM SNACK: 7pm, half a soda, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
DINNER: 10pm, pizza with stewed tomato, sausage, parm, basil, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
EVENING WATERING: 11:45pm, 1 quart
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