Chinese Noodles Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Chinese Noodles. Here they are! All 43 of them:

Listen to your kuya, sister. Got three type kilikili.” He raises his finger. “One, that kano armpit smell like butter, burger, dollar; two, that Chinese intsik one smell like noodles, siopao, yuan; three, that bumbay one bad smell like roti, curry, rupee. Next time, find a kano who smells like butter, burger, or dollar. Curry not good. Rupee also not good, ba.
Merlin Franco (Saint Richard Parker)
How very American it was to assume that these unsmiling Chinese would be pleased if one showed a preference for their native implements...How very American it was to feel somehow guilty unless one struggled over rice noodles and lumps of meat with things that looked like enlarged knitting needles.
Tom Wolfe (The Bonfire of the Vanities)
In 1918, a Chinese immigrant working in a Los Angeles noodle factory invented the fortune cookie. He did so believing that a cookie with a positive message in it would raise the spirits of the city’s poor.
James Frey (Bright Shiny Morning)
You wonder about me. I wonder about you. Who are you and what are you doing? Are you in a New York subway car hanging from a strap, or soaking in your hot tub in Sunnyvale? Are you sunbathing on a sandy beach in Phuket, or having your toenails buffed in Brighton? Are you a male or a female or somewhat in between? Is your girlfriend cooking you a yummy dinner, or are you eating cold Chinese noodles from a box? Are you curled up with your back turned coldly toward your snoring wife, or are you eagerly waiting for your beautiful lover to finish his bath so you can make passionate love to him? Do you have a cat and is she sitting on your lap? Does her forehead smell like cedar trees and fresh sweet air?
Ruth Ozeki (A Tale for the Time Being)
Things to know about me: I'm half English, half Taiwanese, and no, I don't know karate. I'm definitely not good at math and I don't know how to spell your name in Chinese.
Vivien Chien (Death by Dumpling (Noodle Shop Mystery, #1))
Chinese restaurants seem to be able to stuff a square meter of noodles into a tiny to-go box. If you had that same packing power, what would you cram into your pockets, and why would it be 33 ducks?
Jarod Kintz (Music is fluid, and my saxophone overflows when my ducks slosh in the sounds I make in elevators.)
It's a special thick curry broth... ... that I made from bone stock, ginger, garlic and a handful of carefully selected curry spices. That's what that "moon" is made of. Add some gelatin to firm it up, wrap it in the pork bun meat and then cook it! Once it eventually crumbles, all that savory curry goodness seeps out into the mapo tofu noodles!
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 16 [Shokugeki no Souma 16] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #16))
As we followed, she listed all the dishes Auntie Tina had ordered: crispy eel in sweet sauce, smoked duck two ways, hand-pulled noodles with crab roe- "luckily we had enough pregnant crabs on hand!"- and others I could not decipher from their poetic yet opaque Chinese names: squirrel-shaped Mandarin fish, eight treasure rice, four happiness pork.
Kirstin Chen (Soy Sauce for Beginners)
All this time I kept my gaze fixed on hers, an enormously difficult task given the gravitational pull exerted by her cleavage. While I was critical of many things when it came to so-called Western civilization, cleavage was not one of them. The Chinese might have invented gunpowder and the noodle, but the West had invented cleavage, with profound if underappreciated implications.
Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1))
Special combo, you got it," I say into the phone. "Which one?" "The winter melon soup." Winter melon is symbolic of a wife- a special order of the soup means someone's is about to be abducted. A special order of egg fried rice? Someone's kid. Fried pot stickers? A husband. Shanghai chow mein with chopped-up noodles? Someone's doomed to have their life cut short, the promise of longevity broken.
Elsie Chapman (Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love)
The history of Vietnam lies in this bowl, for it is in Hanoi, the Vietnamese heart, that phở was born, a combination of the rice noodles that predominated after a thousand years of Chinese occupation and the taste for beef the Vietnamese acquired under the French, who turned their cows away from ploughs and into bifteck and pot-au-feu. The name of their national soup is pronounced like this French word for fire...
Camilla Gibb (The Beauty of Humanity Movement)
At the Chinese restaurant, Nami Emo would reserve a room with a big table and a gigantic glass lazy Susan on which turned small porcelain pitchers of vinegar and soy sauce with a marble button to ring for service. We'd order decadent jjajangmyeon noodles, dumpling after dumpling served in rich broth, tangsuyuk pork with mushrooms and peppers, and yusanseul, gelatinous sea cucumber with squid, shrimp, and zucchini.
Michelle Zauner (Crying in H Mart)
This is an item used in Chinese cuisine. It's made from the same beans you use to make Chinese vermicelli, but it's been formed into a thin sheet instead of into noodles. Because it's tasteless and odorless in itself, we're obviously meant to focus on the mouthfeel, enjoying the firmness with our teeth and the silkiness with our tongues. As far as the taste goes, the important thing is the dressing... Hmm... the dashi is perfect, and the balance of flavors is well done too. There's vinegar in it, but the strength of the vinegar has been skillfully toned down.
Tetsu Kariya (Japanese Cuisine)
But mostly, finally, ultimately, I'm here for the weather. As a result of the weather, ours is a landscape in a minor key, a sketchy panorama where objects, both organic and inorganic, lack well-defined edges and tent to melt together, creating a perpetual blurred effect, as if God, after creating Northwestern Washington, had second thoughts and tried unsuccessfully to erase it. Living here is not unlike living inside a classical Chinese painting before the intense wisps of mineral pigment had dried upon the silk - although, depending on the bite in the wind, they're times when it's more akin to being trapped in a bad Chinese restaurant; a dubious joint where gruff waiters slam chopsticks against the horizon, where service is haphazard, noodles soggy, wallpaper a tad too green, and considerable amounts of tea are spilt; but in each and every fortune cookie there's a line of poetry you can never forget. Invariably, the poems comment on the weather. In the deepest, darkest heart of winter, when the sky resembles bad banana baby food for months on end, and the witch measles that meteorologists call "drizzle" are a chronic gray rash on the skin of the land, folks all around me sink into a dismal funk. Many are depressed, a few actually suicidal. But I, I grow happier with each fresh storm, each thickening of the crinkly stratocumulus. "What's so hot about the sun?" I ask. Sunbeams are a lot like tourists: intruding where they don't belong, promoting noise and forced activity, faking a shallow cheerfulness, dumb little cameras slung around their necks. Raindrops, on the other hand, introverted, feral, buddhistically cool, behave as if they were locals. Which, of course, they are.
Tom Robbins (Wild Ducks Flying Backward)
In summer, most ramen restaurants in Tokyo serve hiyashi chūka, a cold ramen noodle salad topped with strips of ham, cucumber, and omelet; a tart sesame- or soy-based sauce; and sometimes other vegetables, like a tomato wedge or sheets of wakame seaweed. The vegetables are arranged in piles of parallel shreds radiating from the center to the edge of the plate like bicycle spokes, and you toss everything together before eating. It's bracing, ice-cold, addictive- summer food from the days before air conditioning. In Oishinbo: Ramen and Gyōza, a young lifestyle reporter wants to write an article about hiyashi chūka. "I'm not interested in something like hiyashi chūka," says my alter ego Yamaoka. It's a fake Chinese dish made with cheap industrial ingredients, he explains. Later, however, Yamaoka relents. "Cold noodles, cold soup, and cold toppings," he muses. "The idea of trying to make a good dish out of them is a valid one." Good point, jerk. He mills organic wheat into flour and hires a Chinese chef to make the noodles. He buys a farmyard chicken from an old woman to make the stock and seasons it with the finest Japanese vinegar, soy sauce, and sake. Yamaoka's mean old dad Kaibara Yūzan inevitably gets involved and makes an even better hiyashi chūka by substituting the finest Chinese vinegar, soy sauce, and rice wine. When I first read this, I enjoyed trying to follow the heated argument over this dish I'd never even heard of. Yamaoka and Kaibara are in total agreement that hiyashi chūka needs to be made with quality ingredients, but they disagree about what kind of dish it is: Chinese, Japanese, or somewhere in between? Unlike American food, Japanese cuisine has boundary issues.
Matthew Amster-Burton (Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo)
Over a bowl of noodles [the younger Cantonese man] waxed eloquent on the subject of mantras. 'Ordinary people, Ah Jon, use mantras as spells to win good fortune or ward off disease and other evils. Perhaps they are right to do so, for the mantras are often successful, but I do not ask you to believe that. What I beg you to believe is that they are of the greatest help in altering states of consciousness. They do this by making your mind stay still instead of chasing after thoughts.' He went on to explain that, being devoid of meaning, they do not promote conceptual thought as prayers, invocations and so forth are apt to do; and that, as each mantra has a mysterious correspondence (he could not explain what kind of correspondence) with the various potentialities embedded deeply in our consciousness […] it could cause one to snap into a state otherwise hard to reach. I do not remember his actual words, but I do remember that he was the first to voice an idea which was later to be abundantly confirmed by my own experience. […] he went on to say that to use meaningful words in any kind of religious practice is useless, since words encourage dualistic thought which hinders the mind from entering upon a truly spiritual state. His last words […] were: 'People who pray with words are just beginners. Don't do it!' Several passengers who understood English glanced at him as though they thought him a bit mad and I myself was quite taken aback by his un-Chinese vehemence, but I know now that he was eminently sane.
John Blofeld (Mantras: Sacred Words of Power)
The hot case at a kombini features tonkatsu, fried chicken, menchikatsu (a breaded hamburger patty), Chinese pork buns, potato croquettes, and seafood items such as breaded squid legs or oysters. In a bit of international solidarity, you'll see corn dogs, often labeled "Amerikandoggu." One day for lunch I stopped at 7-Eleven and brought home a pouch of "Gold Label" beef curry, steamed rice, inarizushi (sushi rice in a pouch of sweetened fried tofu), cold noodle salad, and a banana. Putting together lunch for the whole family from an American 7-Eleven would be as appetizing as scavenging among seaside medical waste, but this fun to shop for and fun to eat. Instant ramen is as popular in Japan as it is in college dorms worldwide, and while the selection of flavors is wider than at an American grocery, it serves a predictable ecological niche as the food of last resort for those with no money or no time. (Frozen ramen, on the other hand, can be very good; if you have access to a Japanese supermarket, look for Myojo Chukazanmai brand.) That's how I saw it, at least, until stumbling on the ramen topping section in the 7-Eleven refrigerator case, where you can buy shrink-wrapped packets of popular fresh ramen toppings such as braised pork belly and fermented bamboo shoots. With a quick stop at a convenience store, you can turn instant ramen into a serious meal. The pork belly is rolled and tied, braised, chilled, and then sliced into thick circular slices like Italian pancetta. This is one of the best things you can do with pork, and I don't say that lightly.
Matthew Amster-Burton (Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo)
The menu is spectacular. Passed hors d'oeuvres include caramelized shallot tartlets topped with Gorgonzola, cubes of crispy pork belly skewered with fresh fig, espresso cups of chilled corn soup topped with spicy popcorn, mini arepas filled with rare skirt steak and chimichurri and pickle onions, and prawn dumplings with a mango serrano salsa. There is a raw bar set up with three kinds of oysters, and a raclette station where we have a whole wheel of the nutty cheese being melted to order, with baby potatoes, chunks of garlic sausage, spears of fresh fennel, lightly pickled Brussels sprouts, and hunks of sourdough bread to pour it over. When we head up for dinner, we will start with a classic Dover sole amandine with a featherlight spinach flan, followed by a choice of seared veal chops or duck breast, both served with creamy polenta, roasted mushrooms, and lacinato kale. Next is a light salad of butter lettuce with a sharp lemon Dijon vinaigrette, then a cheese course with each table receiving a platter of five cheeses with dried fruits and nuts and three kinds of bread, followed by the panna cottas. Then the cake, and coffee and sweets. And at midnight, chorizo tamales served with scrambled eggs, waffle sticks with chicken fingers and spicy maple butter, candied bacon strips, sausage biscuit sandwiches, and vanilla Greek yogurt parfaits with granola and berries on the "breakfast" buffet, plus cheeseburger sliders, mini Chicago hot dogs, little Chinese take-out containers of pork fried rice and spicy sesame noodles, a macaroni-and-cheese bar, and little stuffed pizzas on the "snack food" buffet. There will also be tiny four-ounce milk bottles filled with either vanilla malted milk shakes, root beer floats made with hard root beer, Bloody Marys, or mimosas.
Stacey Ballis (Wedding Girl)
In theory, toppings can include almost anything, but 95 percent of the ramen you consume in Japan will be topped with chashu, Chinese-style roasted pork. In a perfect world, that means luscious slices of marinated belly or shoulder, carefully basted over a low temperature until the fat has rendered and the meat collapses with a hard stare. Beyond the pork, the only other sure bet in a bowl of ramen is negi, thinly sliced green onion, little islands of allium sting in a sea of richness. Pickled bamboo shoots (menma), sheets of nori, bean sprouts, fish cake, raw garlic, and soy-soaked eggs are common constituents, but of course there is a whole world of outlier ingredients that make it into more esoteric bowls, which we'll get into later. While shape and size will vary depending on region and style, ramen noodles all share one thing in common: alkaline salts. Called kansui in Japanese, alkaline salts are what give the noodles a yellow tint and allow them to stand up to the blistering heat of the soup without degrading into a gummy mass. In fact, in the sprawling ecosystem of noodle soups, it may be the alkaline noodle alone that unites the ramen universe: "If it doesn't have kansui, it's not ramen," Kamimura says. Noodles and toppings are paramount in the ramen formula, but the broth is undoubtedly the soul of the bowl, there to unite the disparate tastes and textures at work in the dish. This is where a ramen chef makes his name. Broth can be made from an encyclopedia of flora and fauna: chicken, pork, fish, mushrooms, root vegetables, herbs, spices. Ramen broth isn't about nuance; it's about impact, which is why making most soup involves high heat, long cooking times, and giant heaps of chicken bones, pork bones, or both. Tare is the flavor base that anchors each bowl, that special potion- usually just an ounce or two of concentrated liquid- that bends ramen into one camp or another. In Sapporo, tare is made with miso. In Tokyo, soy sauce takes the lead. At enterprising ramen joints, you'll find tare made with up to two dozen ingredients, an apothecary's stash of dried fish and fungus and esoteric add-ons. The objective of tare is essentially the core objective of Japanese food itself: to pack as much umami as possible into every bite.
Matt Goulding (Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture)
The Chinese sometimes arrived poor. Some started by just selling noodles on the street. But they work hard and move up. Most, though, came with many advantages, with money and contacts or easy access to loans through their own banks and networks, but the problem is not the, the problem is that we don't have a level playing field.
Thant Myint-U (Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia)
  Over a bowl of steaming feu, Chinese noodle soup, Mon kept talking. As always, the soup was served with a plate piled high with fresh greens—cilantro and mint, bean sprouts and lemon—that one added for taste. On the table sat an assortment of Lao and Thai condiments like fish paste, chili peppers, and hot sauce. I usually stayed away from these deadly bottles. Mon, on the other hand, dumped a healthy dose of each into her bowl. Just one
Brett Dakin (Another Quiet American: Stories Of Life In Laos)
Hmm... the noodles are good. I can taste the flour; their scent and flavor are clear, not masked by the smell of kansui. Ah, this is good broth. You used only chicken to make it. You did well with the condiments, too. You cannot get such a rich flavor unless you use condiments made from pure ingredients. And I see you used Chinese vinegar. Hmm. This barbecued pork is well made. It's Kurobuta from the Kagoshima prefecture that has been fed properly on sweet potatoes. The cucumber was organically grown, without pesticides or even herbicides. This egg is impressive too. Only a chicken that has been properly grass-fed in a healthy environment can lay an egg this good.
Tetsu Kariya (Ramen and Gyoza)
Even though hiyashi chūka is a dish that was developed in Japan, does it make a difference or not if one prepares it using Chinese ingredients? The most important things--- the noodles and the broth--- are both items borrowed from Chinese cuisine and are prepared using Chinese cooking methods. The barbecued pork on top is also Chinese-style. Which obviously means that Chinese condiments would be better suited to it. Chinese soy sauce and Japanese soy sauce taste different. The same goes for the sake and mirin. Shirō used the best ingredients he could get his hands on in Japan. That is perfectly fine as long as you're making Japanese food. But the Chinese condiments have a far better chemistry with the dish. Shirō paid great attention to each of the ingredients individually but neglected to consider the dish as a whole. Because the ingredients are Chinese, by using Chinese condiments... ... he was able to blend the flavors into one, which is impossible to do with Japanese condiments.
Tetsu Kariya (Ramen and Gyoza)
I thought you said these were Chinese-style noodles... ...so I was expecting something with pork spareribs on top. The fish dumpling noodles in Hong Kong are good... but I've never seen anything like this in China. What's this on the top?" "Barbecued pork made from Berkshire boar, and jakoten." " 'Jakoten'? " "It's a specialty from the Shikoku prefecture. They're fish cakes made from ground sardines and deep-fried in oil. They're nutritious and taste good too." "Sardines, is it?" "Ah, this barbecued pork is completely different from Chinese-style barbecued pork!" "And this soup?" "I made the stock with pork bones and flying fish yakiboshi... ... and boosted the flavor with some miso and soy sauce. I don't use any MSG in it." "Hmm... the combination of pork bones and yakiboshi isn't something that a Chinese chef would have thought of." "I've never tasted a soup like this before!" "The noodles have no kansui in them. After kneading the dough with eggs... ... I let it rest for a whole week." "Mmm... they're firm and flavorful!" "I haven't seen noodles like this in China either!" "The aged noodles taste so good!
Tetsu Kariya (Ramen and Gyoza)
A parade of servers came through with domed platters of incredible food---handmade Chinese dumplings and dim sum shaped like tiny pomegranates and tangerines, gorgeously presented noodles in every color of the rainbow, and dishes with ingredients Natalie could only guess at. A red tea called Da Hong Pao was served, and one of the people at the table said it was so rare that it couldn't be bought for any price but had to be received as a gift.
Susan Wiggs (The Lost and Found Bookshop (Bella Vista Chronicles, #3))
I breakfasted with the crapulent major a week later. It was an earthy, quotidian scene, the kind Walt Whitman would have loved to write about, a sketch of the new America featuring hot rice porridge and fried crullers at a Monterey Park noodle shop crammed full of unrepentantly unassimilated Chinese and a few other assorted Asians.
Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1))
Inside an H Mart complex, there will be some kind of food court, an appliance shop, and a pharmacy. Usually, there's a beauty counter where you can buy Korean makeup and skin-care products with snail mucin or caviar oil, or a face mask that vaguely boasts "placenta." (Whose placenta? Who knows?) There will usually be a pseudo-French bakery with weak coffee, bubble tea, and an array of glowing pastries that always look much better than they taste. My local H Mart these days is in Elkins Park, a town northeast of Philadelphia. My routine is to drive in for lunch on the weekends, stock up on groceries for the week, and cook something for dinner with whatever fresh bounty inspires me. The H Mart in Elkins Park has two stories; the grocery is on the first floor and the food court is above it. Upstairs, there is an array of stalls serving different kinds of food. One is dedicated to sushi, one is strictly Chinese. Another is for traditional Korean jjigaes, bubbling soups served in traditional earthenware pots called ttukbaegis, which act as mini cauldrons to ensure that your soup is still bubbling a good ten minutes past arrival. There's a stall for Korean street food that serves up Korean ramen (basically just Shin Cup noodles with an egg cracked in); giant steamed dumplings full of pork and glass noodles housed in a thick, cakelike dough; and tteokbokki, chewy, bite-sized cylindrical rice cakes boiled in a stock with fish cakes, red pepper, and gochujang, a sweet-and-spicy paste that's one of the three mother sauces used in pretty much all Korean dishes. Last, there's my personal favorite: Korean-Chinese fusion, which serves tangsuyuk---a glossy, sweet-and-sour orange pork---seafood noodle soup, fried rice, and black bean noodles.
Michelle Zauner (Crying in H Mart)
What about 101 Noodle Express?" This was a favorite dumpling place in Arcadia. Their dumplings were rustic and burly---leek and pork, pumpkin and pork, shrimp and bok choy---and their signature dish, a beef roll, was another life-shifting taste experience: long-stewed beef rolled in a crisp and chewy savory pancake with sweet hoisin sauce and a green chili relish.
Michelle Huneven (Search)
I LEFT FULING on the fast boat upstream to Chongqing. It was a warm, rainy morning at the end of June—the mist thick on the Yangtze like dirty gray silk. A car from the college drove Adam and me down to the docks. The city rushed past, gray and familiar in the rain. The evening before, we had eaten for the last time at the Students’ Home. They kept the restaurant open late especially for us, because all night we were rushing around saying goodbye to everybody, and it was good to finally sit there and eat our noodles. We kidded the women about the new foreign devils who would come next fall to take our place, and how easily they could be cheated. A few days earlier, Huang Neng, the grandfather, had talked with me about leaving. “You know,” he said, “when you go back to your America, it won’t be like it is here. You won’t be able to walk into a restaurant and say, ‘I want a bowl of chaoshou.’ Nobody will understand you!” “That’s true,” I said. “And we don’t have chaoshou in America.” “You’ll have to order food in your English language,” he said. “You won’t be able to speak our Chinese with the people there.” And he laughed—it was a ludicrous concept, a country with neither Chinese nor chaoshou. After our last meal the family lined up at the door and waved goodbye, standing stiffly and wearing that tight Chinese smile. I imagined that probably I looked the same way—two years of friendship somehow tucked away in a corner of my mouth.
Peter Hessler (River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (P.S.))
Markets and money made cities. At a time when fewer than 100,000 people lived in London and Paris, two Chinese cities grew to more than a million people each. In Hangzhou, China’s southern capital, a restaurant scene appeared. Money now bought meals at cheap noodle shops, spicy Szechuan places, and fancy restaurants
Jacob Goldstein (Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing)
It had never occurred to me before, but most Chinese food is soft. Meats are cut in thin, chewable strips; there are no hard rolls; and rice and noodles don’t require much chewing.
Zak Dychtwald (Young China: How the Restless Generation Will Change Their Country and the World)
You now in the movies where someone says, "You can't fire me, I quit!" ... maybe don't do that in real life. Unless you don't mind working as a server in your parents' Chinese restaurant for the rest of your life.
Vivien Chien (Death by Dumpling (Noodle Shop Mystery, #1))
Even, sometimes, top-down fiat: see the strange case of pad Thai, a Chinese-origin noodle dish (like ramen) that got “Thaified” with tamarind and palm sugar and decreed the national street food by the 1930s dictator Phibun—part of his campaign that included renaming Siam as Thailand, banning minority languages, and pushing Chinese vendors off the streets.
Anya von Bremzen (National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home)
Saturday afternoon she deboned chicken breasts and put the raw meat aside; then she simmered the bones with green onions and squashed garlic and ginger. She mixed ground pork with diced water chestnuts and green onions and soy sauce and sherry, stuffed the wonton skins with this mixture, and froze them to be boiled the next day. Then she made the stuffing for Richard's favorite egg rolls. It was poor menu planning- Vivian would never have served wontons and egg rolls at the same meal- but she felt sorry for Richard, living on hot dogs as he'd been. Anyway they all liked her egg rolls, even Aunt Barbara. Sunday morning she stayed home from church and started the tea eggs simmering (another source of soy sauce for Annie). She slivered the raw chicken breast left from yesterday- dangling the occasional tidbit for J.C., who sat on her stool and cried "Yeow!" whenever she felt neglected- and slivered carrots and bamboo shoots and Napa cabbage and more green onions and set it all aside to stir-fry at the last minute with rice stick noodles. This was her favorite dish, simple though it was, and Aunt Rubina's favorite; it had been Vivian's favorite of Olivia's recipes, too. (Vivian had never dabbled much in Chinese cooking herself.) Then she sliced the beef and asparagus and chopped the fermented black beans for her father's favorite dish.
Susan Gilbert-Collins (Starting from Scratch)
There were mini Vienna hot dogs with all the classic Chicago toppings. A macaroni 'n' cheese bar with all kinds of fun add-ins. Cold sesame noodles in tiny white cardboard Chinese take-out containers, sliders served with small cones of skinny fries. Fried chicken legs, barbecued ribs, mini gyros in tiny three-inch pitas. All of it the most delicious and perfectly prepared elevated junk food, complete heaven, and just what I love. She gave us each a bamboo tray with a piece of parchment paper on it to use as plates, and large kitchen tea towels instead of napkins. There were cold beers in a tub, endless bottles of rosé, and a massive birthday cake, chocolate with fluffy vanilla frosting, and rainbow sprinkles. And then, after coffee, mini ice-cream sandwiches on chocolate chip cookies.
Stacey Ballis (Recipe for Disaster)
From a time even before then, from before James was born, there's a list of frequently requested items in English and Chinese: Egg rolls Wontons Pot stickers Crab rangoons (What are these? Winnie, their mother, annotated in Chinese. Their father wrote underneath, Wontons filled with cream cheese.) Beef with broccoli Following a scattershot statistical analysis, Winnie also compiled a list of things Americans liked: Large chunks of meat Wontons and noodles together in the same soup Pea pods and green beans, carrots, broccoli, baby corn (no other vegetables) Ribs or chicken wings Beef with broccoli Chicken with peanuts Peanuts in everything Chop suey (What is this? Leo wrote. I don't know, Winnie wrote.) Anything with shrimp (The rest of them can't eat shrimp, she annotated. Be careful.) Anything from the deep fryer Anything with sweet and sour sauce Anything with a thick, brown sauce And there is, of course, the list of things the Americans didn't like: Meat on the bone (except ribs or chicken wings) Rice porridge Fermented soybeans
Lan Samantha Chang (The Family Chao)
Anxious to let my features show': Asian American woman shares fear of harassment - CNN - YouTube channel - Comment for this video with broader perspective, Part 1 Not only America, but in many white countries, other races are getting attacked is happening here and then, Once in Australia, Indians were targeted, In USA before few years black people were targeted (Kindly stay away those genocide things - For example LTTE, Russia - Ukraine, Hindu - Muslim , these things are multi dimensional issues and can not be solved by anyone that soon or that easily), Now I focus only on racist attacks whether it happens in USA or India or Any countries, Not only asian women, all races are attacked somewhere, but why it happens? 1) Not understanding other cultural values, (For example Asian/ China food style is more unique (Noodles, spices, insects and all) why did they develop such food habit is a long way debate, because of evolution, In ancient time most of chinese and Mongolia land was affected by many pandemics and insect attacks due to so many ecological, evolutionary and spiritual reasons, thus their food habits became unique like eating insects and all, Now USA or Strong white people, they eat too much fats such as Burger, Hotdog, clarified butter, pork, beef steak, eggs and more and more eggs, alcohol, etc., their food habits are mostly attacking type or anti predatory type, why did they develop such attitude, it is because of White people that settled in North American land after defeating red - Indians or Native American or Geronimo , so after defeating those native people although America is cool place to live there are many places in America are extremely harsh not like India, those extremely harsh conditions, ecology, evolutionary, adaptation, and even spiritual reasons made them with strong life style and although they understand humanism as well they also protect neutral and orthodox Christianity within themselves just like UK, So when other races or other country people are taking jobs, places or even becoming dominating or some people are pervert in sexual relationships which may pollute society as well, extreme science which is against orthodox Christianity (If it is India , extreme science is against orthodox Hinduism), these are all some of the factors behind racist attack, the solution is understand other culture and try to assimilate and embrace rather than oppose it. Because in this world there is no perfect culture,
Ganapathy K Siddharth Vijayaraghavan
The gray shells of the shrimp gleamed like smooth pebbles in a stream. Ten minutes before the guests arrived, I would submerge them into a hot bath of clear soda accented with slices of ginger. I watched and waited, checking for when the shells turned coral. The soda enhanced the natural sweetness of the shrimp. This dish would be the last to be cooked because of its short cooking time. I also prepared a batch of scented jasmine rice. Every Chinese meal was accompanied by the requisite rice or noodle staple.
Roselle Lim (Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune)
A formal ten-course Chinese dinner was a deliberate courtship of the senses. The appetizers of cold plate meats gave way to steaming fish maw soup, cold and hot introductions to titillate and delight before the showcase of entrees: beef, pork, chicken, fish, seafood, vegetables. The ensuing textures, aromas, and flavors seduced, fulfilling the promises of the first courses. The inclusion of noodle and rice dishes provided a sense of comfort. The final dessert course of sesame balls stuffed with red-bean paste sealed the engagement on the sweetest of notes.
Roselle Lim (Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune)
The streets of downtown Shanghai likewise seemed a continuous freak circus at first, unbelievably alive with all manner of people performing almost every physical and social function in public: yelling, gesturing, always acting, crushing throngs spilling through every kind of traffic, precariously amidst old cars and new ones and between coolies racing wildly to compete for ricksha fares, gingerly past "honey-carts" filled with excrement dragged down Bubbling Well Road, sardonically past perfumed, exquisitely gowned, mid-thigh-exposed Chinese ladies, jestingly past the Herculean bare-backed coolie trundling his taxi-wheelbarrow load of six giggling servant girls en route to home or work, carefully before singing peddlers bearing portable kitchens ready with delicious noodles on the spot, lovingly under gold-lettered shops overflowing with fine silks and brocades, dead-panning past village women staring wide-eyed at frightening Indian policemen, gravely past gambling mah-jongg ivories clicking and jai alai and parimutuel betting, slyly through streets hung with the heavy-sweet acrid smell of opium, sniffingly past southern restaurants and bright-lighted sing-song houses, indifferently past scrubbed, aloof young Englishmen in their Austins popping off to cricket on the Race Course, snickeringly round elderly white gentlemen in carriages with their wives or Russian mistresses out for the cool air along the Bund, and hastily past sailors looking for beer and women—from noisy dawn to plangent night the endless hawking and spitting, the baby's urine stream on the curb, the amah's scolding, the high falsetto of opera at Wing On Gardens where a dozen plays went on at once and hotel rooms next door filled up with plump virgins procured for wealthy merchants in from the provinces for business and debauch, the wail of dance bands moaning for slender bejeweled Chinese taxi dancers, the whiteness of innumerable beggars and their naked unwashed infants, the glamour of the Whangpoo with its white fleets of foreign warships, its shaggy freighters, its fan-sailed junks, its thousand lantern-lit sampans darting fire-flies on the moon-silvered water filled with deadly pollution. Shanghai!
Edgar Snow (Journey to the Beginning)
When I was a little girl, I would gorge on her fried tofu with chilies. I was much slimmer back then, you know." "Was the tofu your favorite dish of hers?" I asked. "Oh no, there's too many to count." Celia's tone softened as if she were waxing nostalgic about a lost, grand romance, rather than a recipe. "Everything she cooked was excellent. I still remember every dish that she made: beef noodle soup, braised short ribs, drunken chicken wings, deep-fried shrimp rolls... Your laolao cooked from her heart, and that's why her food was the best in Chinatown.
Roselle Lim (Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune)
The server soon brought large platters of cheung fun and zhaliang along with various condiments for dipping. Cheung fun was a delightfully surprising dish: nestled within the flat, translucent rice rolls were plump prawns. Zhaliang were crispy, long fritters wrapped in rice noodle. This was a favorite because of the combinations of contrasting textures: tender steamed rice noodles and crunchy golden fritters. The taste of these two dishes was determined by its accompanying dressing: spicy if paired with hot mustard, salty with soy sauce, and sweet with the peanut sauce.
Roselle Lim (Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune)
The Chinese might have invented gunpowder and the noodle, but the West had invented cleavage, with profound if underappreciated implications. A man gazing on semi-exposed breasts was not only engaging in simple lasciviousness, he was also meditating, even if unawares, on the visual embodiment of the verb “to cleave,” which meant both to cut apart and to put together. A woman’s cleavage perfectly illustrated this double and contradictory meaning, the breasts two separate entities with one identity. The double meaning was also present in how cleavage separated a woman from a man and yet drew him to her with the irresistible force of sliding down a slippery slope. Men had no equivalent, except, perhaps, for the only kind of male cleavage most women truly cared for, the opening and closing of a well-stuffed billfold. But whereas women could look at us as much as they wanted, and we would appreciate it, we were damned if we looked and hardly less damned if we didn’t.
Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer #1))