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 回锅肉, 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!

【红霞译文】

        新的一年即将到来，坦率地说，2015年好像早已老得不成样子，两千零一十六年岁岁月月犹如弹指一挥间，现在我们必须重打锣鼓另开张，把从前的辉煌留给过去。且慢，今年还剩下七个多小时、仍有两场特棒的大学橄榄球半决赛正在进行；眨眼间，全家人正筹划吃年夜饭共度良宵。

        “梅婷亚洲风味”是一家新开张离我家差不多仅有十五分钟远的餐馆，假如妈妈开车没犯迷瞪该有多好，可通常她总是昏头转向。全球定位系统明明指出沿低国道方向开出半英里后再转弯，她干吗黑灯瞎火提前半英里胡乱转弯？算了，由于极不起眼的疏忽，当然妈妈负主要责任，结果我们比预计晚到了五分钟。恕我直言，这家新餐馆从外表看并不算大，走进之后方见面积可观，既然涉及到“新”字，里面处处整齐干净。凭经验之谈，但凡清爽的餐馆几乎无味无嗅无色，哪怕漂白剂、脏水、人造尿液一概荡然无存，值得称道的是这家餐馆高端大气上档次。

        像往常一样，我毫不客气地把点菜的艰巨任务交给了妈妈，单凭中文学校练就的本领尚不足以叫英雄有用武之地。我曾拿起菜谱，煞有介事地浏览一番，但马上便露出马脚，所有菜肴全部贴上高深莫测的汉字标签，况且这家餐馆又号称集亚洲风味之大成，说白了就是融合中式──中式美食、美式──中式重口味以及美式──日式寿司，再赘上另一个经验之谈，在美国你若吃中餐可口，那么肯定算不上正宗传统。打个比方来说，著名的“臭豆腐”在国内十分流行，字义上实为发臭的豆腐，翻译成英文之后，你看到底有多少美国人敢动筷子。即使家常便饭如“回锅肉”，前后历经两次烹饪，了不得呀。难怪用英语修饰的主餐大名个个听起来悦耳动听，好在妈妈不会轻易上当，特别像“左公鸡”之类冠上如此雷人的番号，谁不清楚小美向来崇尚老中的珍馔嘉肴，不惜把乏味的东西吹得天花乱坠。

        最后，妈妈敲定海鲜大烩，口感相当不错；油炸蔬菜卷蘸上芥末酱，刺鼻的香辣入味至骨；芥兰牛质地清脆软嫩，爆炒得恰到好处；韭葱孜然羊堪称我的最爱。稍后，她又叫了一道担担面，不过食而无味。总的说来，这顿年夜饭吃得开心，我想记住这个美好的记忆，过段时间定会重返故地。

       去岁迎新之际，我们来到“梅婷” 大吃大喝，也算发扬了中华民族的光荣传统。再见吧，2015年。