NotACornfield<\/a><\/strong>. Check it out.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, you can
only get the full effect WALKING THROUGH IT!\u00c2\u00a0 A little bit of Iowa in the heart
of the city.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean we’re walking amongst the stalks and the contradiction
was palpable.\u00c2\u00a0 The mixture of country and metropolis.<\/p>\nAnd when we got back in the car, Stephen proffered a dinner idea.\u00c2\u00a0 Did we
want to go to this Chinese noodle house.\u00c2\u00a0 In Arcadia.\u00c2\u00a0 His client from Taiwan had
turned him on to it.\u00c2\u00a0 This was the only U.S. outlet of a legendary place in
Taipei.\u00c2\u00a0 I asked Felice in the back seat, did she want to go?\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, to TAIPEI!<\/p>\n
We had a laugh, and then Stephen put the car in gear.<\/p>\n
And it was funny.\u00c2\u00a0 We had no idea how to GET to Arcadia.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, we knew where
Arcadia was, but how the hell did we get there from HERE?\u00c2\u00a0 In the middle of
nowhere in the heart of the city.<\/p>\n
We got on the 5.\u00c2\u00a0 And then we were on the 210.\u00c2\u00a0 Driving into oblivion.<\/p>\n
It’s hard to understand if you’re from the east, how somebody could come all
this way and live SO FAR from the ocean.<\/p>\n
I mean I’m only twenty blocks away from the beach.\u00c2\u00a0 I can walk, not that I
usually do, but the first thing I do when I get back from out of town is take
the 10 to PCH, to communicate with the water.\u00c2\u00a0 What was the rationalization for
living this far away from reality?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not like Arcadia is an oasis.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s
reclaimed desert.\u00c2\u00a0 100 degrees during the summer.\u00c2\u00a0 A land of endless strip
malls.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, here on this ugly, flat landscape lives the American dream.\u00c2\u00a0 For
Asian immigrants.<\/p>\n
L.A. is not New York.\u00c2\u00a0 Where Chinatown is just a cab ride away.\u00c2\u00a0 This is
TWENTY MILES away.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s its own private ghetto.\u00c2\u00a0 Brand new, with Chinese
lettering on the structures.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a bizarre turn on segregation.\u00c2\u00a0 Separate by
CHOICE!<\/p>\n
Not finding a spot in the lot, I was dropped off to negotiate our place in
line.\u00c2\u00a0 You see you just can’t waltz into Din Tai Fung.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re waiting for
less than half an hour, you feel lucky.<\/p>\n
I got a number from the hostess.\u00c2\u00a0 And a menu.\u00c2\u00a0 Which I couldn’t understand.\u00c2\u00a0
Oh, there was soup.\u00c2\u00a0 And rice.\u00c2\u00a0 But where were the main courses?\u00c2\u00a0 Where were
the NOODLES?<\/p>\n
Turns out Stephen had it wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 Din Tai Fung is not a noodle house, but a
DUMPLING HOUSE!\u00c2\u00a0 And right behind the plate glass window were a bunch of men
huddled, churning the little delicacies out.<\/p>\n
It was akin to the sperm scene in "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About
Sex".\u00c2\u00a0 The men were completely in white.\u00c2\u00a0 Covered from head to toe.\u00c2\u00a0 I even
saw a white Yankee cap.<\/p>\n
There were two groups.\u00c2\u00a0 In the middle off the tiny kitchen four men were
having a party.\u00c2\u00a0 Laughing as they created the dumplings.<\/p>\n
And right in front of us, right on the other side of the window, were three
more men.\u00c2\u00a0 In an assembly line.\u00c2\u00a0 Making dumplings.<\/p>\n
There were little stubs of dough.\u00c2\u00a0 Which the first man rolled flat.\u00c2\u00a0 And
then, with his tiny rolling pin, he turned up the ends, creating a little crater.<\/p>\n
The second man, he inserted the filling.\u00c2\u00a0 Shrimp and pork while we were
watching.\u00c2\u00a0 He picked up a shrimp, embedded it in pork and then placed the
concoction in the crater\/dish and folded it over.<\/p>\n
Then the third man, he crimped the edges.<\/p>\n
The end result was the kind of perfection you see in the supermarket.\u00c2\u00a0 But,
in this case, they were all HAND MADE!<\/p>\n
By seven Latinos.\u00c2\u00a0 Not an\u00c2\u00a0 Asian in sight.\u00c2\u00a0 You got the impression if an
Asian kid wanted to make dumplings his father would say to study MATH!\u00c2\u00a0 And, I
couldn’t make these dumplings for more than half an hour.\u00c2\u00a0 How could these men
complete a full shift, making the same thing over and over?<\/p>\n
And then we were called to our table.\u00c2\u00a0 Where the waitress picked up our
order, which we’d completed while waiting, filling out the form like the menu in a
sushi bar.<\/p>\n
And then, as we kicked back with our tea, we began extracting our chopsticks
from their wrappers.<\/p>\n
And, just as I was about to roll the paper into a ball, I noticed there were
INSTRUCTIONS!\u00c2\u00a0 How to eat the dumplings.<\/p>\n
Turns out you mixed the ginger with the vinegar.\u00c2\u00a0 Then you picked up the
dumpling with the chopsticks and inserted it in this concoction.\u00c2\u00a0 THEN, you placed
the dumpling in a soup spoon.\u00c2\u00a0 And ladled more ginger and vinegar atop it.<\/p>\n
Then, you were to punch a tiny hole in the dumpling and suck out the juice.\u00c2\u00a0
And then swallow it whole.<\/p>\n
Believe me, it sounded as complicated as it reads.\u00c2\u00a0 It was too much to
comprehend.\u00c2\u00a0 Until the dumplings finally arrived.\u00c2\u00a0 SO MUCH FOOD arrived there wasn’t room for it on the table.<\/p>\n
The seaweed noodle appetizer, not on the menu, which Stephen had seen on a
table on the way to the bathroom and had ordered.<\/p>\n
Hot and sour soup.\u00c2\u00a0 Which was called "Sour and Spicy Soup", but was the same
thing.<\/p>\n
Shrimp fried rice.\u00c2\u00a0 Succulent string beans.<\/p>\n
And the dumplings.\u00c2\u00a0 Endless dumplings.\u00c2\u00a0 Forty or so dumplings for the four of
us and Rufus.\u00c2\u00a0 Who played with his chopsticks and didn’t eat a thing.<\/p>\n
So, I followed the instructions.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t that difficult.\u00c2\u00a0 I sucked up the
dumpling and it was so TASTY!\u00c2\u00a0 I started shoveling them into my mouth.<\/p>\n
But it was such a ritual for a tiny little morsel.\u00c2\u00a0 I love ginger, and
vinegar rings my bell.\u00c2\u00a0 But I just couldn’t figure out why I had to bite into the
dumpling and suck out all the juice BEFORE slurping it up.<\/p>\n
So, about the fifth dumpling in, I eliminated that step.<\/p>\n
Big mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 I ended up covered in dumpling juice.\u00c2\u00a0 There WAS a method to
the madness.<\/p>\n
There was the occasional Anglo.\u00c2\u00a0 But really, Din Tai Fung was an insiders
place.\u00c2\u00a0 For those in the know.\u00c2\u00a0 Asians.\u00c2\u00a0 It felt exotic.\u00c2\u00a0 Like being on a trip.\u00c2\u00a0
Only really, we were just a hop, skip and a jump from our backyard.<\/p>\n
DIN TAI FUNG Dumpling House<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the east coast everything’s close.\u00c2\u00a0 In a matter of hours you can be at a PLETHORA of cultural attractions.\u00c2\u00a0 But in California, once you’ve been to Santa Barbara, San Diego and Palm Springs, you’ve seen it all, you stay home. Well, when I first arrived, I checked out all the locations from the Frank […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-3c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}