Chopsticks, Washington, D.C.

After Leo called me like six times tonight, he succeeded in dragging me away from the office about sevenish and taking me to dinner in Chinatown. He said he was feeling bad for me after the less-than-fabulous experience Joseph and I had last night at Nirvana (and Leo's family is Buddhist, too, even though he went to a Catholic school). The bus that runs right by my office building also goes to Chinatown, so we took that. Chinatown is fun, and most all of the restaurants and businesses have their window signs written both in English and in Chinese, even places like Subway sandwiches.

He wanted to go to a place called Chopsticks Restaurant, a very unassuming place that looked much like a neighborhood cafe or diner, instead of the faux-elegance of so many D.C. area restaurants. As soon as we sat down, the staff immediately brought us menus, water, and a complimentary pot of hot tea. We had a charming Chinese waitress, and she and Leo chattered on endlessly in Cantonese.

I told Leo to order us some authentically Chinese food, so he consulted with the waitress and ordered an interesting combination of whole fish, a pork hot pot, a big plate of ong choy, and white rice. The first thing to arrive was the ong choy. Ong choy--"water spinach"--is a popular Chinese vegetable dish which is sauteed with garlic. The plant is much bigger than the American style spinach we know, and Leo only knew it by it's Chinese name, and kept calling it water vegetable. About the same time, the hot pot arrived. There were chunks and slices of rich, fatty pork in what I can best describe as a not-too-sweet barbecue sauce, with some onion-like vegetable and other things I couldn't quite identify. It was served over the white rice and was a pleasant enough dish. The starring dish for the meal, though, had to be the fish.

The kitchen took an entire whole flounder, which was over two feet long, and cut the bulk of the meat off the carcass and stir-fried it lightly in a wok with nice mushrooms and several different types of crunchy vegetables like celery, carrot slices, and snow peas. Meanwhile, they took the remaining carcass and deep fried it. The fried carcass was arranged on the serving plate, and the vegetables and fish pieces were artfully arranged on top of the bones. A woman who must have been a manager or an owner came out with the fish to present it to the table, and insisted on immediately serving it to us while it was still hot. So, she dished up big servings of the fish and vegetable combination, but she didn't stop there. She then began to cut out pieces of the deep fried bones, and served large pieces to us, placing them atop the stir-fried portion. She insisted we eat it now, before it got cold and "not crispy." Yeah, fried bones. Well, I tried it, and it was actually pretty tasty. Nice crunch to it.

So, we had a nice meal, and there was so much food, there was way too much for just two people. Re-enter the manager/owner lady......there was still fish left over on the platter, and she insisted on serving the last of the fish, cutting up the last of the bones, and serving those, too, and I do believe that she wouldn't have taken no for an answer! So, she mounded up our plates again, and we had to make a bit of an effort to eat more so she wouldn't be insulted. Leo tells me that in Chinese culture, it's very rude to waste food when one is a guest at someone's home.....of course, in China, they generally have smaller servings! He said she was just being a "Chinese mother." Nonetheless, I kinda liked this place, and I hope we go back again some day.