Meals on wheels — Asian style
To the editor:
Fast food, Chinese style is an experience to be savored. After you live in an area for a while, looking for some new stuff to delight your taste buds and provide sustenance becomes a challenge. First, there are plenty of McDonald’s and KFC outlets near where I live. Subway franchises abound as do Starbucks and other Western restaurants.
It would be easy enough to survive on the typical diet of fried life. The shrieking you hear is the dietary technicians and SAD 1 and TAMC at the thought of a person living a life on only American fast foods. Pass the salt!
Here on the streets of Guangzhou can be found a wide range of delights. Beginning in the morning you can get steamed breads, dumplings, congee, rice porridge with pork, mushroom or chicken, pancake wraps, and fried bread. Lunch finds pretty much the same thing. In the evening you really find the tongue treats. In small three-wheeled carts with a flat plate on the back, these mobile kitchens produce a variety of tempting nibbles. Cheap, hot, fast and delicious, they are also slightly less than legal.
A favorite is the noodle shop. Operated by a husband and wife team it cruises up and down the street around the neighborhood. Just step outside your building and start walking along the street. Parked in a parking space, clouds of steam, smoke, flames and smells provide all the advertising needed. Food from these vendors is cheap, a full dish of noodles or rice is between eight and twelve kuai (Kw-ai). Kuai is the street term for yuan, the Chinese dollar. Cheap, yummy, and fast — what more do you need.
The closest to the experience in Presque Isle would be the Rib Truck. That portable barbecue extravaganza dishing out Pork Parfaits and Ribs with a smile and class. The price of pork in China would mean the Rib Truck was selling gold bricks out the back. Typical pork dishes on the street mean two to four ounces of pork. That would be one scoop of sauce.
On a good night, there is a crowd around the noodle carts. Into a wok goes some oil; turn up the gas and hear it sizzle. scoot it around with the scoop. Break an egg, scramble and add the meat. Flip and twist the wok, working the mixture into a steaming mass. Then add the noodles or rice and mix. Think of a flaming tossed salad. This is classic entertainment. A few minutes, three or four, no more and the heap of steaming food is dumped into a foam clamshell, then sealed, bagged, topped with some chopsticks and traded for a few kuai. Dinner is served.
Sometimes, the street vendor is able to set up a few stools and small card table for outdoor dining. Most of the time you take your prize and go back to the apartment for a quiet dinner.
These are tolerated to an extent. Periodically the local constabulary will run around and chase the vendors on to another location. This can often mean that as your order is cooked the chef is eyeballing the inspectors in their pick-up trucks with city logos. None of these venders are licensed and the health department does not inspect the facilities. The inspectors will converge on a group of cooks. As the truck pulls up, the gas is turned off; the woks are stowed; the assistant moves the boxes and trash bins off the street; the chef hops on the driver’s seat and off! Pedaling as fast as he can, the chef speeds off down the street with your meal!
Apparently, if the crew does not move everything will be seized, destroyed, and fines will be issued. Never fear, the chef is not going to pass up a paying customer. Down the street, under a new skywalk, he pulls over, calmly turns the gas back on and finishes his cooking. Nothing like fast food.
Orpheus Allison
Guangzhou, China
orpheusallison@mac.com
