Sketched Dining at a Chinese Restaurant.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVLL, Issue 4275, 14 September 1895, Page 2 (Supplement)

Sketched

Dining at a Chinese Restaurant.

I went with my friend. At 8 o'clock in the evening we the restaurant of Mong Sing Wah, at 18~Mott Btreet, New York. Mong Sing Wah is termed the Celestial Delmonico of New York, and his place is patronized by thage Chinaman who are on the home-stretch of their fortune making in this country and are anticipating their early return to the homes they left behind them in Canton and Hong Kong. But to the dinner. There was a portion of it before us, and so, carrying out my friend's injunction, I took up my chop-sticks with an air that was intended to convey to the other customers present the idea that I was a proficient in their use, and had, in fact, eaten with chop-sticks all my hfe. These instruments of gastromouic nature are about the size of a lead pencil and are made of hard, black wood. Two of them are furnished to each person at table. Despite my efforts at nonchalance, 1 discovered that 1 was in a bad box. I did not know how to eat with my lead pencils any more than a baby would know how to properly handle a fork. A kind-hearted Chinaman at the next table took pity on me and showed me how to handle them. It is not at all difficult after you get the hang of it. You must hold one of the sticks rigidly, letting the upper end project over the hollow of the hand, as a school boy holds his pencil, and gripping it firmly between the first and second fingers and the ball of the thumb. The other is held lightly, as a good penman holds his pen, between the first and second finger and the ball of the thumb. " Chow-chopsney" was the first dish we tackled. It is a very palatable stew, made of bean sprouts, chicken gizzards and livers, calves tripe, chagon fish dried, pork and a number of other ingredients. " Chop-scow" was the next course. This lis a perfumed roast pork. After being roasted, the pork is hung in the smoke of various aromatic herbs, which are burned under it. This gives it a most delicious flavor. Like everything to eat in a Chinese restaurant, the pork is cut into small and thin slices, so that it may be conveniently handled with the chop-sticks. No bread is ever served with a Chinese dinner, the place of the "staff of life" being taken by boiled rice, or " fan," as it is called by the Celestials. Nobody can cook rice like Chinese. When they set it before you, it iB beautifully white, dry and nutritious, every grain being thoroughly cooked. It is not mushed together, but every grain is. separate. " Sans-sui-goy" means fish, and the manner in which it is served at Mong Sing's restaurant would make your own chefs of Young's or Parker's green with envy. It is baked in a sort of brown sauce that possesses almost every heavenly flavor, and one can go on eating it forever, apparently, without tiring of the taste. The average Chinaman uses very little flavoring in his food ; consequently at this Mott street cafe we were given only one condiment, called " scow," which is a sort of mild halfcousin to our well-known Worcestershire sauce. The dinner over, we washed it down with quite a number of cups of "tung-ta," as tea is called in the Celestial language, and not quite so many drinks of " no-ma-deo," or Chinese liquor, which id distilled from rice and poured over figs and prunes to give it a sweet, fruity flavor. It is served in odd little tea-cups and is a most insidious imbibation. The cups do not hold much more than a tablespoonful and while you are drinking " no-ma-deo' it tastes so mild, sweet and harmless that you do not imagine it can do yon any harm. But suddenly the intoxication comes upon you like a thunderclap, and you must either stop drinking "no-ma-deo," or else be willing to stagger homeward. My friend ordered " yeu-ti," and the waiter brought a small tray of cigarettes. Well, the dinner was over, our hunger was appeased, and the cost was only about 2s. 6d. for the two. "Now come and get shaved by my Chinese barber," said my friend, and a few minutes later we entered the "tonsorial palace" of See Chung, at 22 Mott street. This, to the uninitiated, is even a more novel experience than to dine at a Chinese restaurant. 1 doubt if there is any barber in Boston who would understand how to use such an assortment of razors as See Chung keeps on hand. First, the Chinese barber lathers the face of his customer with a toothbrush, and then he goes at the beard with a broad, shortbladed razor, set in its handle like an axe. After scraping away with this instrument for a while, he changes it for a much narrower and lighter blade, until, when he comes to shave the nose and the inside of the ears, he uses a thin, flexible bit of finely tempered steel, which is only about las broad as a toothpick. I will confess that it makes a novice a little bit nervous to have this glittering little piece of keen steel go waggling about the delicate tissues and fibres of the ears and nasal organ, but if you did not see it, you would never know that it was being used upon you, so light is the touch of the artist who is manipulating it.