I’m fortunate to have friends to play tennis with. During water breaks, we discuss where to have lunch. Choosing a restaurant sometimes poses a challenge.
Since we started our tennis-and-lunch routine a year ago, we have learned each other’s favorites, dislikes, allergies, and attitudes towards food. One of the Americans likes chicken and vegetable dishes with European flavors. Another friend, also American, is a vegetarian, and while she does eat eggs, she can’t eat shrimp or shellfish. And my third tennis friend is from Ukraine, and she is rather adventurous about life in general, including food. Thanks to my mother and Japanese school lunches, I enjoy most food.
We only have a limited number of options: a family style Italian restaurant, a Greek restaurant and a diner. One day I suggested a new option. “There is a strip mall in my town, with Indian and Thai restaurants. Are you up for spicy food? “
“Well, I can’t eat Indian, but Thai should be fine.”
“Thai restaurants usually offer some vegetarian dishes.”
“That sounds very interesting!”
Surprisingly, we settled on the Thai restaurant very quickly. The restaurant was very crowded when we got there, but we were able to grab the last table available. As we browsed the menu, one of my friends asked.
“Have you been here before?”
“When they opened, my family and I came several times, as we wanted to support a local business. But then we kind of forgot about this restaurant.”
Slowly my memory came back. The first time was on our way home from a trip. I looked for restaurants on my phone, and happened to see that this restaurant had just opened. At that time, we were the only diners. The next time was a bone-chillingly cold winter night. We shivered as we waited. Finally, pork and hakusai (Chinese cabbage) soup came in a big metal pot with a little fire underneath to keep it warm. It was delightful. I felt the ice in my body thaw and warm blood started to flow to my fingers. After that cold night, I went there a couple more times. But when was the last time?
I remember now. It was early one summer evening. I can picture it very clearly. My kids and I sat down at a table on the patio outside the restaurant. I wanted to hear my kids talk and enjoy food in a place where background music wouldn’t reach us. The sun was still lingering in the sky and it shone on me. The warmth of the sun was very pleasant.
A group of eight adults came in and took the table behind me. They started talking rather loudly. They seemed to know each other well, as they skipped the usual niceties and jumped right into subjects they wanted to talk about. They talked about others, and the conversations weren’t very uplifting. I didn’t want to hear them, but their voices reached me like a hot summer radio wave.
A friendly waiter came out; I’d seen him before. I remembered his nimble walk through the small gaps between tables inside the restaurant. A big middle-aged guy behind me started talking to the waiter rather mockingly.
“You don’t look like a Thai.”
“Well, some people say that about me,” the waiter who was African American responded jokingly; the guy wouldn’t give up.
“How long have you been working here?”
He asked questions, one after another. The questions he asked indicated that he wasn’t a frequent customer there. Although probably not his intention, what I heard was “What are you doing in my town?”
It wasn’t pleasant, so we skipped dessert and left quickly. Since then, I kept my distance from the restaurant.
When I had lunch with my tennis buddies, our waitress looked Asian although I wasn’t sure she was Thai. In New York City, nobody seems to care if the faces of the servers match the cuisine’s origin. Sadly, it still matters in the suburbs, at least for some people.
I had a great time savoring my first Thai food in a long time. So, later that day, I asked my husband if he would like to go.
We went to the strip mall that Friday. I got out of the car, glanced at the door of the Indian restaurant on the right, and opened the door to the Thai restaurant. It was a world away from Tuesday. I saw only a couple at a small table. We took a table at a window facing the main street. An Indian waitress with a long braided hair came along with menus.
Can you guess where my head went? “This person doesn’t look like a Thai. Why doesn’t she try to get a job at the Indian restaurant next door?” I was appalled by my own thoughts. I am in the same league as the middle-aged guy on that summer evening! I didn’t know what to say.
I can say reasonable things when I think consciously. But I was puzzled by the Indian waitress at the Thai restaurant. It means that my brain has not been sufficiently trained yet. I want my brain to work in a way I can live with. I want to be more open to the many possibilities and combinations of elements. I want to throw away my “this has to be that” formulas and be free. Otherwise, in America, the land of possibilities, I’ll have to complain many times over little things.
Life is messy. If I cling to those formulas, my life will be even messier.