Radical Transparency

(in case the other blogs need a friend)

Tags



 
Posts filed under

chinabites

July 23, 2008

Spicy Roasted Fish Comment

I don't eat much fish anymore.  Unless I kill it myself, with a speargun.  And, yes, I know, that's weird, but I'll get into it another time.  For the moment, all I want to say is that even though I don't eat much fish, I do still have fond memories of fish eating.

For example, the night we had a celebratory Yanjing Browns basketball championship dinner at 独们冲 (not sure, actually, if there was a championship to celebrate, but we did win quite a few tourneys between 2004 and 2007, so it's possible; regardless, the point is that it was a bunch of happy, hungry, rowdy basketball players rolling into 独门冲), a night that rushed back into my mind after reading this chinabites blog post:

http://blog.chinabites.com/2008/07/23/spicy-roasted-fish/

I commented:

I think there's another Du Men Chong on the Dongzhimen side of Gui Jie. I vaguely remember going there once. Vaguely because whoever had arranged the meal explained as we sat down that spicy roasted fish wasn't spicy roasted fish unless everyone was dripping sweat while eating it. We found out moments later that the fish itself would have done the sweatiness job easily, but our host insisted that we get a jump on things by pounding a few rounds of 二锅头. And by "a few" I mean I don't remember how many. I think the spicy fish was pretty tasty, though maybe it wouldn't have been the same if my soaked and dripping head wasn't spinning and swaying in a grain alcohol fog.

I miss Beijing.
Comments [0]


July 18, 2008

Commenting in Chinese

Is it totally ridiculous to use Chinese characters in a comment on a blog whose primary audience will be native English speakers?

I think the obvious answer is yes.

I just used a few, though, in my response to Wiley's latest chinabites blog post:
 
http://blog.chinabites.com/2008/07/18/back-in-beijing

Dude. Hui restaurant in your "old neighborhood." An ayi that remembers you and a bearded shushu. 水煮风片. 素炒饼. Best green beans in the history of green beans. Wow. They're back in business. That is truly great news. They are my favorite restauranteurs in Beijing. I don't think we would have ever moved out of Dong Wang Zhuang had they not closed up shop. Please send my love.

Hmmm.

I think the biggest reason I felt compelled to include the characters is that I think pinyin is so damn unelegant looking.  I think I might need to suck it up and deal with it, though.  Alienating people that might participate in an English-only comment thread but won't feel comfortable participating in an elitist bilingual thread is not a cool thing to do.
Comments [0]


July 18, 2008

Echoes of Burritos

Just responded to a comment Danny left on A More Perfect Market. 
 
http://www.moreperfectmarket.com/2008/07/prairie-blog.html
 
He's annoyed at chinabites for making him hungry for food he can't have.  I told him he might want to use chinabites as an artificial hunger creator next time he challenges a superior eater to burrito crushing. 

But I didn't mention the burritos.  I just alluded to competitive eating, figuring that'd be sufficient to co