FEBRUARY 12, 2023 – Sitting in today’s ocular light of our national figurative Pantheon, of course, is Abraham Lincoln. No other president has been so revered for so long, except by Confederates during (and after) the Civil War. Volumes have been written about the 16th president, much of the treatment in praise of the man and his works, but much also revealing Lincoln’s complexity. He was neither simple nor a simpleton. If you expect to learn more about my impressions of the man, you’ll not find them here. The rest of this post is about Chinese takeout.
For Super Bowl nourishment, I suggested we “order Chinese.” Beth’s spontaneous reaction was positive, and to confirm her agreement, she identified the alternative: frozen pizza.
We’re regular patrons of our local version of Chinese, called New Fresh Wok. At least one-third of the name has morphed into a misnomer: the joint is no longer new. I immediately hopped online to review the menu for an alternative to my usual Chicken in Black Bean Sauce and an order of steamed dumplings. I went with Shrimp in Black Bean Sauce and . . . an order of steamed dumplings.
It’s not that I didn’t scour the menu for more adventurous selections. Blazing the trail in that regard was the bright orange flame next to items spiced to set a white guy’s hair on fire. In theory, I’d be all in for the hot stuff, but over the decades my white guy GI got torched a few too many times and ultimately revolted. I have to stick with bland.
Actually, not. The Fresh New Wok menu, which includes Thai and Japanese cuisine in addition to Chinese, provides ample comic relief for the ignorant. I say ignorant, because if you’re as irredeemably ignorant of foreign languages as I am, you laugh with unfettered, unbecoming abandon at the slightest errors and oddities revealed in translation.
The leading error on the New Fresh Wok menu is the absence of “s” to designate the plural, as in Chicken w. Chinese Vegetable. A single pea pod? One carrot? An onion? Just one bean in Shrimp with Green Bean? More perplexing is Mixed Vegetable. Would that be a tomato—part fruit, part vegetable? Then there’s Fried Chicken Wing. I’m pretty sure that for $7.55, you get at least two. My same assumption—that you get one appendage—applies to the item immediately following: General Tso’s Wing. I’m uncertain as to whether latter is a “wing” or . . . an arm. (General Tso, by the way, was a hero of the Taiping Rebellion in mid-19th century China. A banquet chef for the Nationalist Chinese who fled to Taiwan in 1949 and eventually to NYC is credited with naming food after the general.)
The dropped “s” continues with the category designated as SPECIAL ROLL. At the top of the list, of course, is the Yum, Yum Roll, but if you want to go insane, you get the Crazy Tuna Roll.
My favorite oddity was a whole category designated explicitly as “fun”: CHOW MEI FUN OR HO FUN. I didn’t see any bright orange flame icons next to the “fun” items, but you could create your own with the contents from a fistful of hot mustard packages next to the check-out area. Not to spoil the fun, but I’ll bet that the proper pronunciation of “fun” in this context isn’t as fun as I think it is.
What I find mildly troubling about the New Fresh Wok menu is the category, HEALTH FOOD SECTION, with only six items—out of scores of menu-wide selections. The implication is that the rest of the (sodium-rich menu)—even before a handful of soy sauce packages are opened over your order—is not particularly healthful. This condition could be easily improved, however, by adding an “s” wherever “bean” or “vegetable” appears on the menu.
Fortune cookie wasn’t on the menu, but fortunately, half a dozen found their way into the takeout bag. I’m still working my way down the food chain.
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
