There are not a lot of places in China where I am a regular, outside of the classrooms where I teach. Despite several months of trying to learn to speak Chinese, I still can't just walk in somewhere and make small talk, so it's hard to build the kind of connections you need to become welcomed.
But there *is* a noodle shop in our neighborhood that I think of as my hangout. I have eaten here more often than anywhere else in China. It's nothing fancy; you could call it a greasy spoon except that they don't have any spoons. Just bowls of noodles eaten with disposable chopsticks. It's so cheap, it's one of the few places where students will go to eat when they get sick of institutional cafeteria food.
I like it not because it's cheap, but because the menu is so limited, it's almost impossible for me to order the wrong thing. Pretty much all they serve is bowls of noodles, steeped in a broth and garnished with cilantro and chives. On good days they also add some chopped, pickled mushrooms. On bad days, they forget I am a vegetarian and add boiled gray slices of lamb.
The restaurant also grills kebabs, with your choice of beef, chicken, lamb, fat (I'm not kidding about this), and my favorite, pressed tofu. I know most non-vegetarians think tofu is tasteless pap, but when it is brushed with oil, coated with a mix of cumin, chili pepper, and salt, and barbecued over an open flame, it is delicious. And it's hands down better than grilled fat.
I also like this place because the owners are friendly and act happy to see me, rather than looking worried and avoiding eye contact because I am a foreigner who won't be able to talk with them. Like most small businesses here, this restaurant seems family-run. I can't be sure of the relationships, but I'm pretty sure they're all one family, especially because there are more people working than you'd strictly need to keep on if you were primarily worried about the payroll.
The place is small, with only eight tables, so to save space and to attract customers all the food is cooked out in front on the sidewalk. The restaurant owner also mans the grill; a little portable contraption, no bigger than a small stand-up electric keyboard, coupled to a big tank of bottled gas. Behind the grill is a glass case stocked with pre-speared kebabs. To the left are two steaming soup pots, each one big enough for cannibal stew. One holds simmering broth, the other, boiling water for cooking the noodles. The pots are kept bubbling all day, sitting on individual stoves that look like half an oil drum, stoked with chunks of glowing coal.
Preparing the noodles involves the coordinated efforts of two more staff members. One actually makes the noodles, the other boils them. The noodles they serve are hand-pulled, which means they are not sliced from thin flat sheets. Instead, starting with a fat rope of dough, the noodle-maker stretches out the noodles by hand. Noodles are prepared fresh as each bowl is ordered. Watching them make the noodles alone is worth the price of a meal.
The noodle dough is pre-kneaded on a galvanized steel counter top, forming a lump about the size of a bedroom pillow. One serving's worth of dough at a time is gouged out of this mother lode, then pulled and twisted into a strand as long as the distance between the maker's two outstretched arms. While stretching it, the noodle-maker periodically snaps his wrists and magically spins the dough, winding it up like a rubber band. Occasionally, and with great flourish, he will slap the dough down onto the steel counter, with a thundering crash.
After these exercising twists and pulls, the noodle-maker folds the dough back into a "U", so that it is now doubled over. He stretches out this pair of strands, making them thinner, then repeats the folding back, once more doubling and thinning the strands of dough. He does this again and again, very quickly. I haven't kept a good count, but after seven or eight repetitions, you have hundreds of strands of fine chewy noodles.
Each meal comes with a free lesson in binary arithmetic. Remember that story about the wise man who asks to be paid with one grain of wheat of the first square of a chessboard, two on the second, four on the third, etc., doubling the count with each successive square? The noodles progress the same way.
At lunchtime, the place fills up quickly. Each table seats four, but students sometimes come in as one or two. When this happens, all the tables can be taken, but there will still be unoccupied seats. If I am waiting for a table to clear, the owner will insist that I sit down with some poor unsuspecting student. I know he has nothing but good intentions, but this situation is awkward for both me and the student, so I try to arrive after the peak of business.
When it's not too hectic, as soon as I sit down, one of the two waitresses will bring me a small bowl for tea and keep it filled as long as I keep drinking. This is another incentive for me to show up after the lunch rush. They serve tea the way I like it; so diluted and weak that if you had your eyes closed you'd think it was just hot water.
The broth that comes with the noodles is likewise undistinguished, but you can add condiments to spice it up. Each table has a teapot filled with sharp, dark, vinegar, and a jar of ground dried chili peppers in oil. Many customers wolf down the noodles and leave the broth, but after carefully doctoring mine, I make sure to slurp down every drop, picking up the bowl in two hands and drinking like a Viking.
Usually Deb and I eat lunch at home. But when she is not around, I go to the noodle place. I always get the same lunch - one bowl of noodles and one stick of grilled tofu - and by now they already know exactly what I want, even without me asking. If I could, I would say "Hi, Joe (or Zhou), I'll have the regular." I always make a point of telling them what I want, but one time when it was really busy, it was very gratifying to have them sit me down and bring me my lunch, without my saying a word.
To say that they know my name is going a bit far; I've never introduced myself, and I doubt that they'd have any easier time with my name than I'd have with theirs. In their minds I imagine I am simply "lao wai" - the Chinese word for all foreigners. But as long as I am *the* lao wai, that's alright with me.
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