Lemon Prawns

While chatting with Pastor Alan at the chapel, I asked him for recommendations for nearby eating establishments. His favorite place is a restaurant called Kirin a block away from our hotel. I didn’t recognize that name as Chinese.

“Is that a Japanese restaurant?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “It’s Chinese, and it’s also my wife’s favorite. Let me introduce you. Her name is Carmelita.”

Out on the front stoop of the chapel was Carmelita, whom I expected to be Hispanic. Alan introduced us, and I could see she is Chinese.

“Ni hao ma?” I greeted.

She returned my Mandarin greeting with a smile, then said in perfect North American English, “Actually I’m Cantonese. Half of us Chinese in Richmond are.”

Richmond. Culturally, linguistically and racially one never knows what to expect here. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Perhaps it is good to lay aside all of one’s expectations about race, ethnicity and gender here, because they are sure to get shattered in this town.

Soon we found the restaurant, and it too turned out to be Cantonese. Pretty upscale, we had checked out their menu and prices on the web and decided we would avoid the ninety-five-dollar Peking Duck and go for something in a more moderate range. Our hostess apologetically told us that the entire restaurant had been rented out for a wedding bash at 7:30 pm, but if we expected to finish our meal before then, we were more than welcome to dine there. Since we still had two hours, we decided to stay and eat.

Great choice.

Our Cantonese waitress told us in broken English that the lemon prawns we ordered were big enough to split, and that she would supplement our meal with a bowl of rice. We agreed.

Next she brought our a pot of the best hot jasmine tea I have ever tasted, better than that we had in Bei Jing. Then she served a generous bowl of no-kidding, for real, genuine Chinese sticky rice that I could eat with my chopsticks.

“We’re in the right place,” I told Glenda.

Finally the waitress brought us a dozen of the most elegant, delicious golden fried Chinese prawns in a light, slightly sweet lemon sauce that still had the perfect citrus tang. Unimaginably scrumptious.

By this time we could see some of the wedding party arriving, having their pictures taken as they entered the vestibule of the restaurant. They had come from the same wedding we saw in the park earlier. One young lady wore a full-length, red silk Chinese gown, festooned with metallic gold appliqué. Red, of course, is the Chinese color for good luck, and women often wear that color at weddings. Her dress was mythically beautiful.

We finished our meal in less than an hour, in plenty of time to get back to our hotel. Some, but not all, of the employees of the Sheraton are on strike, so our hotel continues to operate, though with a reduced staff. We haven’t noticed any reduction in their usually excellent service. Nevertheless, as we returned to the hooch, we had to cross a picket line, though we were not challenged, molested or insulted as we did so. We came back to our hotel and prepared for tomorrow’s adventures.Read more