The Secret Menus of Chinatown.
Let’s start with the oldest question from The X-Files:
Is there, a secret menu for the Chinese in Chinatown?
You know, do white people get the ‘white’ menu, and Asians the 'cheaper, better, secret handshake' menu?
The straight answer is no.
<wink wink.>
The first and second rules of Chinatown:
we do not talk about the secret menu in Chinatown.
Honestly though?
I've never read a menu in a Chinese restaurant until I set foot in Melbourne’s Chinese restaurant.
Menu with pictures in a food court? I understand.
But a proper book menu, with words?
Come on man. I came here to eat; not to read.
Here's how it works in a proper Chinese restaurant for a Chinese, alright?
You book a table for 12, you walk in, you state your name, and you demand your 'captain'.
"Where's Sam? Sam’s is not here? How about Patrick? Give us Patrick then."
Patrick doesn't appear immediately, no, you sit down, maybe in your private room, and you nibble on your plate of peanuts, then Patrick will emerge, looking busy yet relaxed at the same time.
Like a Swiss Bank account manager, he starts with some chitchat, - the weather, the government, some celebrity scandal, before whipping out his notepad.
And it always goes like this:
The appetiser - always something auspicious.
Be it 'The Four Seasons' or 'The Five Prosperity Gods' or 'The Eight Deities' - a mixture of meatballs, veggies, spring rolls, crab cakes to kick start the night.
Then you have the soup.
Usually, it's 'shark fin' soup. The shark fins are fake, made from rice vermicelli. The hero is the crab egg drop soup base. We all douse it with black vinegar to hide whatever was in it.
Next up is a protein dish.
A choice of roasted goose / pork / chicken / duck. Grilled, fried, stir-fried, kung pao style, Peking-duck style. With fried buns, with steam buns.
Then we move on to steamed fish.
Ideally a giant grouper, in your face.
Cantonese style, or spicy Teochew style, Thai style, black bean style. We ask Patrick what’s good.
Then, whole prawns or scampi.
It could be the standard deep-fried with butter version, or the oatmeal version, or tossed in sticky black sauce. Sometimes, the chef will wheel in a cart of prawns, alive and jumping, and he'll fill a bigger bowl with Shaoxing wine, vinegar, chili, and swirl all the prawns in it until they pass out. Voila, drunken prawns. The modern ones will flambé for food safety purposes.
Then we move on to some weird broccoli, mushroom, sea cucumber, and abalone in an oyster sauce concoction. For the illusion of health.
Where're the scallops?
Either braised with cabbage or stir-fried with vegetables.
It’s the one day of the month grandma does vegetarian, so a plate of stir-fried garden pea sprout with garlic and beancurd skin for her.
The crescendo is the king of seafood, like the boss in an episode of Ultraman. Giant crabs, or giant lobsters, with claws, crustaceans to affirm that we have evolved with opposable thumbs to dominate, remove and suck whatever’s left in those shells. Do not drink the bowl of lemon water, it’s to wash your hands.
After that, to cool down, something in a clay pot. Tofu, more seafood, more mushrooms, more sea cucumber, with snow peas sticking out, bubbling away, which makes you ponder:
Rice, where’s the rice?
How can we not have rice? If you haven't ordered white rice to go with the fish from the get-go, fried rice and noodles are the signs that you're at the 31km mark of a marathon. Steamed glutinous rice, in the shape of a dome with lap cheong, spare ribs, mushrooms.
If an aunt is visiting from interstate or overseas, perhaps a serve of 'Emperor's fried noodles' - egg noodles stir-fried with delicate soy sauce, meat strips, and bean sprouts with more prawns, more scallops. XO sauce, perhaps.
Dessert is fresh fruits on a weekday.
On a good day, sweetened red bean soup with orange peel, glutinous rice balls in ginger soup, boiled snow fungus with lotus seed and lily bulb. If swallow's nest is in the mix, someone either scored straight-As or has recently received a promotion.
The captain's job, really, apart from singing some unwarranted karaoke songs and throw us some freebies when the kitchen screws up, is to guide the father and answer questions. Are 10 dishes enough? Shall we add sweet and sour pork? Lobsters, are they Alaskan, Australian? Please refill the peanuts, give us the good tea, a glass of warm water for the madam, and oh, don't you fucking dare charge us for the hand towels that smell like a prostitute's motel.
Every Chinese who's been through a Chinese banquet, a reunion dinner, knows this blueprint by heart. The dad knows this. The captain knows this. The five-year-old kid knows this.
The structure is the same, we’re just playing with the lyrics, stanzas, rhythm.
Like all kungfu novels, the final state of Chinese dining, is the state of no menu.
The menu is within us, all this time, in our hearts.
So every time I see a fine-dining restaurant boasting their seasonal menu, I say: so what? We adjust our degustation menus based on the traffic to the restaurant. The whiff from the fish tank.
We customise our own degustation, and the kitchen can handle it.
The kitchen is alive; not a factory.
That’s why the blue and white menu of Pacific House in South Yarra feels so clinical, it sucks off any joy or anticipation of Chinese dining. Nothing, absolutely nothing in a Chinese restaurant sounds good translated into English. That’s why they have the colourful ‘specials’ on the wall, to make you feel like you’re in a candy store.
So yes, there is a ‘menu’.
For the noobs who have no imagination.
We have to spell out everything for them like an excel spreadsheet.
The 'special’ menu, is an urban myth perpetuated by non-Chinese for feeling out of place in Chinatown. It’s a poor reflection of themselves, because, given the chance, that’s what they’d do. It’s the guilt from past colonisations.
If you don’t trust us, why don’t you learn to read and speak the language?
We all did, and we had no issues at a McDonald’s.
(Ironically, McDonald’s and KFC do have secret menus.)
Last year, I met a guy who used to work front of house at Flower Drum (Melbourne’s most expensive Chinese restaurant), and I asked him how does one get extra service on top of the amazing service?
His reply?
Sneak in a $50 to the 'captain' as you shake his hand, he'll take good care of you.
Ah, so, same with any other restaurants.
The equivalent of ordering a bottle of champagne before you get seated.
So, maybe it’s not really a race thing.
Just a money thing.
Come to think of it, every time I order tap water in a restaurant, I do feel like I’m being neglected compared to the neighbouring tables.
As if they have a secret menu or a list of expensive beverages or something.