duck-shaped pain

Then my fountain pen spewed ink all over my hand while I was trying to change cartridges. I didn't get ink on my clothes, thankfully, but I walked around all afternoon with a big black hand. I felt odd looking at things in stores, worrying that I would damage things by touching them with my inky mitt.

Continuing the story�

Things I Ate While On Vacation

(That I Did Not Eat Last Year)

1. Palak paneer

Which I've eaten before, in many other places, but never in SF. It was at this Indian restaurant that's fooled me two years in a row, but with decent results both times. How has this happened? Well, there are a bunch of Indian restaurants about a block from the hostel, and being that Indian food is one of the two cuisines I crave most when I'm back home that I can't get there, seeking it out is always a priority when I'm on vacation.

Last year, I was looking for a place to eat that was within a few blocks of where I was staying, and the guidebook I had on that trip recommended a restaurant named Shalimar. I thought, okay, this place sounds good, and it's a reasonable distance away, so why not? The map provided with the book wasn't terribly helpful: the dot that indicated where this restaurant should be was large, and covered what looked to be several blocks. So it was somewhere close by, but I wasn't sure where.

I tromped off in its general direction, and finally passed some restaurant named Shalimar. I went in, ate some lamb dish that was tasty and some garlic naan. I was satisfied.

Now, this year, my new guidebook listed no Indian restaurants nearby, so I turned to the otherwise-useless Vindigo for assistance. It listed three, with Shalimar being the highest rated. I walked down towards the restaurant, and passed the place I went last year, with the same name. Its location didn't correlate with the location Vindigo gave it, but I've encountered errors in it before, and I figured, hey, here I am.

I went inside and was slightly puzzled. The review in Vindigo went into great detail about the d�cor of the restaurant, and what I read and what was actually before my eyes did not match. Still, I ate.

The punchline here is that there are two restaurants named Shalimar within the same block. Both times, I ate at the wrong one, or at least not the one that the guidebooks recommended. However -- it was very good palak paneer. Not as good as the one that almost made me cry down in Tucson, but first runner-up, possibly.

2. Croque-madame, frites

A croque-madame is one of those foods that you always learn about in French class, but never actually see on restaurant menus, at least not where I live. It's essentially a ham and cheese sandwich, but with the addition of a fried egg on the top. In this instance, the cheese was also on top (I don't know if that's normal), so my sandwich was composed of (in ascending order) bread, ham, bread, a lot of cheese, and finally, one runny egg.

It was pretty tasty, although I actually wanted to have the mussels marnieres. But they were out of mussels, and it was kind of a grey, rainy night, so a sandwich it was. It was accompanied by a tangy green salad and a mess of thin, crispy frites. I enjoyed it greatly, while attempting to ignore the guy sitting next to me. If he was trying to hit on me, he was going about it in the lamest way possible, by telling me, "oh, you must be European, because you're eating with your left hand!" This was repeated several times. I pointed out that I was merely left handed, but he persisted. Then someone else sat down, and he went over and bothered that person.

3. Barbecued pork banh mi

Banh mi (I don't know how to make the name plural) are Vietnamese sandwiches. They're small baguettes stuffed with chicken, pork, pate, meatballs, or some other sort of meat, accompanied by carrots, daikon, cilantro, jalapenos and some sort of mayonnaisey sauce. An odd mix of French and Asian elements.

I've been wanting to try one ever since I read the essay "Banh Mi and Me" in John Thorne's Pot on the Fire. In it, he describes his random encounter with such a sandwich and his search to find more information about what it was that he had eaten. Since one of the banh mi vendors of interest he mentions was a short walk from the hostel, it was as good a time as any.

It was a very rainy morning when I walked over to the sandwich vendor. (It was essentially a deli, with a mere two seats for diners, so it couldn't really be called a restaurant.) I got there, and ordered the barbecued pork sandwich, since it sounded the best at that moment in time. The woman behind the counter disappeared to make my sandwich, and came back with a hot, steaming orb of something wrapped in paper. It was huge. It was only two dollars. I sat down at the stool by the window and devoured it. It was as good as I thought it would be. The baguette was warm and crusty, and the pork was tender. The cilantro and the jalapenos added a nice flavor to the whole package. I watched it rain outside as I ate my fantastic meal inside, and thought about how pleased I was to be there at that very moment. I thought briefly about buying another one and taking it back to the hostel for later, but I figured that it wouldn't taste as good if I ate it in the hostel kitchen.

4. Seafood soup, pork rolls

I ate a lot of Vietnamese food while I was there, relatively. Two out of ten possible meals -- one-fifth of my total eating time. Needless to say, I can't get that at home, either.

My other Vietnamese meal consisted of a big bowl of shrimp, squid and crab soup with tons of noodles, basil, mint, and other delicacies. Special unexpected bonus: pieces of gluten! Yum. I ate this with a side of pork rice paper rolls and some Vietnamese coffee.

I was writing while I was eating, and the restaurant staff seemed reluctant to bother me while my pen was in motion -- a first for me. Usually, people just interrupt their hearts out. After I had finished eating, my waiter told me, "Oh, stay as long as you like. You're busy." This was a very nice, much-appreciated gesture, but I left soon after. It was Friday night, and I wanted to avoid the eager, laser-beam stares of those people who were waiting for my table.

5. Extremely spicy chicken with black bean sauce, non-spicy dumpling soup

On the night before I left, I couldn't figure out where to eat. Do I want to repeat a previous favorite? Or go somewhere new? I was kind of tired from walking around for days on end, and my feet hurt in every possible way, so the idea of eating somewhere close appealed greatly. Only, I couldn't decide where to eat. I thought about all the possibilities, and finally decided that I really craved Chinese food. It didn't matter what type -- I could end up eating the worst touristy Chinese food possible, and I wouldn't care, because I was tired, and I wanted Chinese food.

But I did slightly better than that. I picked a place that looked good from its guidebook description, and walked there. When I got there (it being Saturday night and all), it was packed. I felt sort of sheepish going in, being a party of one and all, but I did anyway. Not that this turned out to be a problem, though.

Since there were no tables, I offered to sit at the counter. That way, I could watch the food being cooked, which I always find interesting. Lots of clattering and things moving about very quickly. Lots of yelling. Still, delicious things manage to occur.

I am a sucker for fermented black beans. I will eat anything that has them in it. I have a bag of them in my refrigerator, and sometimes I eat them plain, by the handful. This is disturbing -- they're intensely salty and very tangy and sour, and yet I can't get enough of the way they taste.

I also love very spicy food. Chicken with black bean sauce, ordered spicy would take care of both of these loves. The waiter asked me if I was sure I wanted my dish hot. In the front of the menu was a small description of the different levels of heat available -- even mild was supposed to be fairly hot, but I wanted hot hot. [1] I also ordered a bowl of dumpling soup.

I sat and wrote and watched people dash back and forth with bowls and ingredients. Bowls of yet-to-be cooked noodles and rice were placed on the counter before me, as space behind the counter was tight. I was really involved in what was going on, and almost failed to notice that my soup had arrived.

It was a very simple, yet good soup. Three large, pork-filled dumplings in a subtle broth -- quite the opposite from the barrage of strong flavors my chicken would turn out to be. Sesame oil was present, which has the best aroma of any foodstuff I can think of.

Then my dish arrived. It was everything I hoped it would be. It was indeed spicy. Very spicy. I sniffed happily through the first few bites, and then the adrenalin kicked in, and I enjoyed every last bit of that dish. People who don't enjoy the spice don't realize the positive effects of eating food that hot. All your other senses seem to be enhanced. Things get louder, colors get stronger, and I often feel like talking really fast or running a marathon all of a sudden. It's a great feeling. I finished it all, and was extremely satisfied.

My waiter, like the one the previous night, said I could stay there and write as long as I liked. Since the dinner rush seemed to have slowed, and no one was waiting for my seat, I indulged in the invitation this time. I sat and enjoyed the aftereffects (a warm, floaty feeling) of eating such a spicy meal, and drank tea.

Plus, I got free food. A couple of times, my waiter would come up to plate some other diner's food, and he would stick a tiny sample of said dish onto a little plate and give it to me. He would tell me what it was, but I couldn't understand him (it was loud in there), so I don't remember exactly what I ate. Spicy Squid Thing and Beef and Friends with Spice, I guess.

It was the best meal I've eaten in a long time. I was happy to finally eat some chicken with black bean sauce, however authentic, with a decent amount of heat built into it.

[1] Chicken with black bean sauce, in standard Americanized Chinese restaurant parlance, is the dish most often saddled with the name "Hunan Chicken." As such, it often gets a star or a checkmark or a tiny chile pepper next to its description on the menu which warns the average person to look out, as this dish may be spicy. I have yet to eat an order of chicken with black bean sauce at one of these restaurants that was actually hot, or spicy at all. This is not to say that what I've eaten was bad -- the taste of fermented black beans goes a long way to cure all disappointments [2], but Hunan chicken my ass.

[2] Speaking of black beans, this recipe looks pretty good.

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