2015-12-31

【Aiden in English】

        A new year has arrived, and to be totally honest, 2015 was getting old. It feels like it turned 2016 ages ago, and we have to leave the glamorous life behind. But not yet. There are still seven more hours to go, and two great college football semifinal bowl games to go. And, as a split-second decision, a family dinner was added on New Year’s Eve as well.

        Mei Ting Asian Fusion is a restaurant the just opened recently and located just fifteen minutes away from our house. Assuming mom didn’t make a mistake while driving, which she always did. The GPS clearly stated that Lower State Road was half a mile away, so why turned into a small neighborhood half a mile in the dark before we are supposed to turn? Anyway, we had a five-minute delay due to a little inconvenience, which was partially true because mom was very inconvenient. The new restaurant looked quite small on the outside, I must say, but it opened up behind the entrance. Still, there was an effect of the tidiness of the restaurant, as it was brand new. A rule-of-thumb for clean restaurants is if the bathroom had tints of colors, whether it’s bleach, spills, or other man-made stains. A good thing in this place was spotless.

        As usual, I handed the tough job of ordering to mom on purpose, as the classes at Chinese school don’t help in these areas. I just looked at the menu and tried to look intelligent, which was quite hard when all the names on the menu were weird characters. This restaurant was an Asian Fusion, which basically meant Chinese-Chinese cuisine, American-Chinese heavy taste, and American-Japanese sushi. Another rule-of-thumb, if the dish sounded good, then it’s not the most traditional Chinese dish. For example, a famous Chinese dish is known as 臭豆腐, which is very popular in China. It literally means Stinky Tofu. Translate that to English, and see how many American people actually order it. Even normal dishes like 回鍋肉, which means Double-Cooked Pork Well, the entrees all, in English, sounded fairly nice, and mom carefully avoided those, especially the kinds with names, like General Tso’s Chicken. The Americans are die-hard fans for Chinese cuisine and even give boring food a name.

        In the end, mom chose a delicious seafood mixture that was done quite well, a few of deep-fried veggie rolls that came with a killer wasabi sauce, roast beef with broccoli that had a nice texture, and a lame with cumin leek which I love. Mom later added a Dan-Dan Noodles to the list, but it was flavorless. Overall, the meal was enjoyable, and it would be a long time before I would have one like this again.

        The Chinese tradition of eating a good meal at the end of the year was well lived up to when coming to Mei Ting, and so long 2015!

【紅霞譯文】

        新的一年即將到來，坦率地說，2015年好像早已老得不成樣子，兩千零一十六年歲歲月月猶如彈指一揮間，現在我們必須重打鑼鼓另開張，把從前的輝煌留給過去。且慢，今年還剩下七個多小時、仍有兩場特棒的大學橄欖球半決賽正在進行；眨眼間，全家人正籌劃吃年夜飯共度良宵。

        “梅婷亞洲風味”是一家新開張離我家差不多僅有十五分鐘遠的餐館，假如媽媽開車沒犯迷瞪該有多好，可通常她總是昏頭轉向。全球定位系統明明指出沿低國道方向開出半英里後再轉彎，她幹嗎黑燈瞎火提前半英里胡亂轉彎？算了，由於極不起眼的疏忽，當然媽媽負主要責任，結果我們比預計晚到了五分鐘。恕我直言，這家新餐館從外表看並不算大，走進之後方見面積可觀，既然涉及到“新”字，裡面處處整齊乾淨。憑經驗之談，但凡清爽的餐館幾乎無味無嗅無色，哪怕漂白劑、髒水、人造尿液一概蕩然無存，值得稱道的是這家餐館高端大氣上檔次。

        像往常一樣，我毫不客氣地把點菜的艱巨任務交給了媽媽，單憑中文學校練就的本領尚不足以叫英雄有用武之地。我曾拿起菜譜，煞有介事地瀏覽一番，但馬上便露出馬腳，所有菜餚全部貼上高深莫測的漢字標籤，況且這家餐館又號稱集亞洲風味之大成，說白了就是融合中式──中式美食、美式──中式重口味以及美式──日式壽司，再贅上另一個經驗之談，在美國你若吃中餐可口，那麼肯定算不上正宗傳統。打個比方來說，著名的“臭豆腐”在國內十分流行，字義上實為發臭的豆腐，翻譯成英文之後，你看到底有多少美國人敢動筷子。即使家常便飯如“回鍋肉”，前後歷經兩次烹飪，了不得呀。難怪用英語修飾的主餐大名個個聽起來悅耳動聽，好在媽媽不會輕易上當，特別像“左公雞”之類冠上如此雷人的番號，誰不清楚小美向來崇尚老中的珍饌嘉肴，不惜把乏味的東西吹得天花亂墜。

        最後，媽媽敲定海鮮大燴，口感相當不錯；油炸蔬菜卷蘸上芥末醬，刺鼻的香辣入味至骨；芥蘭牛質地清脆軟嫩，爆炒得恰到好處；韭蔥孜然羊堪稱我的最愛。稍後，她又叫了一道擔擔麵，不過食而無味。總的說來，這頓年夜飯吃得開心，我想記住這個美好的記憶，過段時間定會重返故地。

       去歲迎新之際，我們來到“梅婷” 大吃大喝，也算發揚了中華民族的光榮傳統。再見吧，2015年。