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🦋 Cultural expectations

The best noodle soup is the curry noodle soup sold by Nyonya. That's what I think anyway -- so you can imagine how excited I was a couple of weeks ago when I noticed there is a branch of Penang (same ownership as Nyonya) on Rte. 10, in the same shopping center as Kam Man Foods. This is fantastic -- I've eaten there a couple of times in the past month, and it is definitely in the same high league as NYC restaurants. The servings are even larger than I had remembered though: If you are dining by yourself you will most likely take half of your food home for another meal. (I love that if you buy noodle soup to go, they will give you noodles and broth in separate containers, to mix at home.)

I had lunch there today (Curry beef noodle soup), and was surprised when the (Malaysian) waitress who has served me a few times so far greeted me by saying "Hola, Señor!" I smiled, said hi, and did a double-take -- does she think I am Latino? I can't figure out what would make her think that -- and by the time I recovered it was too late to ask. My only idea is that she had noticed me reading a book whose author's name José is prominent on the cover... Kind of a stretch. Or possibly I mis-heard.

Update: Curry beef noodle soup is also extremely good reheated the next day. I was worried the noodles would get soggy from sitting in the fridge overnight; but not at all.

posted afternoon of Saturday, December 13th, 2008
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Perfectly possible--probably all the kitchen staff are Latino. There's a very decent sushi place in Gresham, Oregon where all the staff, except for the boss, are Mayan Guatamalans. And they think gringos and Japanese are crazy for eating that weird stuff and were quite surprised to hear it was served in Mexico City.

posted morning of December 14th, 2008 by Randolph

Yeah, that could well be true about the kitchen staff. I guess I was surprised she'd make that assumption about me because the clientèle of the place looks to be entirely Asian or Anglo-white.

posted morning of December 14th, 2008 by Jeremy

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