"There you guys are," Cordelia says with a grateful sigh. "They've been giving me dirty looks. 'Who's this bitch think she is taking up a four-top...'" The dumpling place smells of the usual Chinese spices, the air thick and soupy with white pepper and sesame seed. Flushed with a few hours exploring the MFA and the train ride over to Chinatown, I sit down across from her after the usual greeting of kisses on each cheek. "This place is supposed to be phenomenal," she gushes.
The menu is expected...noodles; soups; sections for beef, chicken, and seafood. But we're not here for any of those. Looking at the Dumpling section, I breeze through the short list but Cordelia's already chosen. The last two items are not the dumplings I have grown used to. Encased in the slightly sticky skin, the dumplings are filled with a cousin to pork soup. "It's the latest thing that's really big in New York," Cordelia says after she orders them. The waitress smiles and brings us refills of ice water. In only a few moments, she returns with the bamboo steamer. Cordelia pops it open with a gentle hand and fishes out a dumpling with the provided tongs. Her eagerness punctures the side of one, bleeding the pork soup out onto her plate. "Oh no! That's the best part," Kelly says with some consolation. She quickly fishes it onto her flat spoon. Using the care of a surgeon, Kelly and I fish ours out by gripping the purses' thicker tops in the tongs.
The dumplings are hot and sharp. The pork perfectly done and the soup a viscous orange that tastes just as it looks. Savoring the first one, we each devour our second with less care. Popping hers into her mouth, Cordelia's face switches back and forth from wide-eyed pain of the hot soup to delight with the taste. As the waitress returns, we make a decision that sets into motion "the Noodle Incident" [insert dramatic music here].
Cordelia orders the other soupy dumplings as Kelly and I peruse the rest of the menu for something else to go along with it. Kelly asks for another water glass and Cordelia and I decide on noodles with pan-seared pork and mustard greens. "Not the soup one," she says to the waitress, pointing to the menu with emphasis. The waitress smiles and we go back to our conversation, unaware that Pandora's box had been opened.
The waitress returns to fill our glasses and gives Kelly a second, empty glass. She looks concerned and hands it over with as much gusto as she could while imagining what this strange man wants with an empty drinking glass. "No, I wanted it filled..." Kelly says, but she is already gone to another table, and his request fades with her. And then the noodles arrive. They smell strong and we each grab a portion onto our plates. "They taste super snotty," Kelly warns and manages to suck down the bundle twisted around his chopsticks. I manage to get a little of the pork and greens with mine and shovel it quickly into my mouth to keep it from dropping onto my lap. The noodles are strings of mucus so soft that they break apart with the barest touch of my tongue. The pork is boiled and tough, while the greens are limp and soggy (and all of it is somehow flavorless despite the scent of spice).
"I think they just drained the soup and plated it," Cordelia whispers. Kelly and I nod in agreement and we all put the remainder back on our plate. As nicely as possible (and after a few minutes of agonizing), she calls the waitress back over and apologizes, but tells her that the noodles aren't what we ordered. The waitress, who understood us perfectly before, suddenly transforms into a woman fresh from Beijing with the barest grasp of English. With each rephrasing into the baser parts of the conversation, Cordelia's gentleness fades until she is all but yelling "We don't want these!" and gesturing at the plate of noodles with both hands. "So sorry," the waitress says in broken English and takes the plate away to the general manager. A slightly older woman with a no-nonsense haircut, the GM comes to our table. "You not like?" she asks. "Sorry, but it's not what we ordered," Cordelia says, bringing some of her original charm and care back into her voice. The GM nods with understanding and then is replaced by a waitress that is not ours. "You not like?" she asks harshly. We all shake our heads and watch as yet another waitress comes to our table. Lather, rinse, and repeat a few more times. Cordelia emphasizes it was not what we ordered as Kelly and I cover our mouths with our drinking glasses, sucking down water and then devouring the ice...anything to keep us from talking and taking the attention away from our unintentional sacrificial lamb.
As the GM returns, Cordelia sighs. "We'll just get our order of dumplings, please," she says. She asks for the other kind that we have not had and the waitress brings over the same steamer of dumplings as before. "Let's just eat them and go," I say and Kelly nods. We suck the dumplings down, scalding our tongues and blistering the roofs of our respective mouths. Kelly and I pull out cash to pay, but our waitress has disappeared. Awkwardly, we wait as every eye of the serving staff, kitchen, and front of the house watches us to see what unreasonable request we would make next. In what seems like a lifetime, our waitress returns and we pay her as quickly as possible. Returning with Cordelia's card, she brings a plate of orange slices that Kelly and I ignore and shrug on our coats as quick as we could. Cordelia pops one in her mouth, sucks off the fruit, and joins us on our run away from the dumpling place. "I can't believe you did that," Kelly says. "What do you mean?" Cordelia asks, her voice quivering just slightly with concern. "You know they spit on the fruit," I tell her and she gags.
Embarrassed, slightly abused, and still a little peckish, we disappear in search of a bar in hopes that we can put a good spin on the story.
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