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2008-12-23
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"One Time Lapse of Judgment", what a phrase! Feel free to put your focus wherever it is. Could it be only ONE time, or failure to think clear and made the mistake? For me, unfortunately, going to 寧波麵食 is not the latter. It certainly is a one time thing, and I'm sure I wouldn't be damned to say that one time is too many. Oh, fellow readers, don't trust the packed crowds at a restaurants. Between 12noon to 2pm every weekday, lunch crowds hustle around like hungry pack of hyenas ready for the hunt,
Located in a half deserted alley in Wan Chai,寧波麵食was once recommended by a local Connoisseur (Mr. Choi). A small joint with impossibly tight restaurant spaces. Half the eatery was stacked with soda by the cases and used newspaper that were weeks too old. Waiting time is not something that bothered me, at this hour if you don't wait there is a problem. Still packed with the 12 - 1pm crowd, I thought to myself, that a warm bowl of noodle soup could do wonders on a day when the north wind has invaded the city.
I was wrong.
Finally sardined into the tight seats in a table too big for 6. We inched our ways into the menu. Two orders were placed. One was Thick noodles with Pork Chops and Scallions in broth. (蔥烤豬排湯麵 -- 粗麵, $30), Another was the bestseller Red Cooked Pork Ribs With Rice cooked with Greens(紅燒肋骨菜飯, $35). Then the surprise hit us. It turned out, we have to pay for our food first, and then the food will come, not in a fast-food sort of way. I've had experiences with special operating practices, but this one is something new. We paid our respective checks and took sneak peeks into the kitchen to see our meals made.
The pork chop was fried earlier. There was no doubt that it will never arrive crispy and fresh. It arrived scissored into thin stripes and floating on the broth and noodles that were barely warm enough to be called " noodle soup". The broth has the tri-factor: Thin, Tepid, and Brown with burned bits that looked like unsuccessful deglazing in a Western culinary standpoint. The noodles were no comfort food either. They happened to be starchy on the outside and somewhat not-cooked-through in the middle. I wondered, did we just have a Chinese thick noodle al dente moment?
The Ribs arrived in a clay pot that's been severely burned over the blazing fire from the gas stove for way too long. While this time around the dish is hot and steamy, bubbling around the sides. The content failed us miserably. We could fish out limp stalks of Chinese cabbage swimming in a bland sauce with lumps of cornstarch between spoonfuls (not to mention the starchy taste). This was also the first time I've ever had fried tofu that absorbed no significant flavour in a dish so filled with sauce. Wait, the signature star of the show turned out to be chopped up riblets (as opposed to medium sized ribs, bone in) that have seen better days in a soup somewhere tucked away in the kitchen. Seeing my friend struggling with the impossible war of textures on the meat and cartilage, she exclaimed,
"With my experiences in the kitchen I have never been able to accomplish this, they have managed to make the riblets overcooked on the meat and undercooked at the white cartilage part". The accompanied rice with greens may as well change its name to "rice with vegetables that used to be green". There were chunks of ginger that has passed its prime, and chopped up cabbage and bok-choy that wilted and turned yellow. Even the woman who served me the rice looked at it in dismay as she settled the dish on the table.
We left our atrocious lunches unfinished, it was inevitable. And the next table was a crowd spltting views over whether their "salt water chicken' was too salty or flavorless, or their "wine-cooked chicken" has any taste at all. Chopped up into miniscule bone-attached pieces, the morsels could be any meat-kind except chicken. It surprised me no more that the boiled dumplings tasted frozen on the inside and thin noodles broke into mushy shreds that you'll have much luck scooping with a spoon than picking them up with chopsticks.
Like I said, it's a one time lapse of judgment, and looking at the way the hungry lunch crowds downing dishes after dishes, leaving in discontent and a stomach full of disappointment and swearing never to return again, I knew that for sure that some of them will return on days when they couldn't make up their minds over what to eat and where. I also know that even on those days when my nose and my tastebuds failed to guide me to my next lunch place, and my mind has momentarily paused, I shall never mark my return here. It is, afterall, a ONE time lapse of judgment.
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