The Peking Garden
The Peking Garden
I’ve known people who have judged something before you really got to know it. I’ve also known people who stereotype someone because of race, color or ethnicity. I can also say I’ve known people who have judged a book by its cover. That last one was a bit cliché, but by now I should have the point across. Judging is something we all do at some point. It doesn't even have to be intentional; it sometimes turns out to be subconscious. One of the things I believe we judge very often, especially at a young age, is food. This is exceptionally true about me. I hated almost every meal that wasn't a hamburger and french fries. Even tacos were out of the question.
If I would describe myself now, I would say I am someone that is a fine connoisseur of food. I love everything from Chinese to Italian. If there is a food I am not acquainted with I’m more than willing to give it a try. This happened, believe it or not, in one night- a night that I experienced a wide variety of food and a night that changed me in many ways. It was a night my taste buds will never forget.
It all started on a Thursday afternoon. At its started, it was just another ordinary day to me. But I had made plans weeks before for the evening to be something that was far from ordinary. This was the night of the Spiderman 3 premier, and despite my near perfect school attendance record, a few of my friends and I planned on going to school and skipping class on Friday. When the day finally came the classes seemed to go slower then ever, so it gave me a lot of time to think about how awesome it was going to be. Popcorn, a night with all my closest friends, a kick-ass action movie (let alone the fact that it was a premier), what more could I, a teenage guy, ask for? There was only one thing that was hanging over my head - the food plans for before and after.
My friends had told me we were to be dining at an "amazing" Chinese restaurant called the Peking Garden. To me the adjective amazing didn't seem to fit well here at all, it seemed horribly out of place. The first thing that came into thought about Chinese food was lots of vegetables, strange sauces, and raw fish. Not exactly the type of foods to make my mouth buds water.
Blocking the thought of stringy, sour vegetables mixed with raw fish out of my head, I tried concentrating on getting through the rest of school. Ironically school lunch this day was General Tso's chicken, the closest thing to eating Chinese food in school. I watched everyone else in the lunch room eating their meal, and decided I would pass. If I were to be eating it later, I’d rather upset my taste buds once than have to frown at my choices twice that day.
Three hours later, school was finally out and I was ready to go. It was four o'clock and my stomach was starting to get antsy since I skipped lunch. I was thinking about making a sandwich, ham and cheese sounded wonderful right about now. It was making my mouth start to salivate. Just one quick sandwich- white bread, honeysuckle ham, and American cheese; the norm. That will hold me over until midnight when I can gorge myself with buttery, salty popcorn. I went to my kitchen and got out the bread, but the next thing I know is my doorbell is ringing. I looked outside and to my surprise it was my friends ready to get going. Who would have thought that day dreaming about a ham sandwich would have taken up an hour?! That part of the story in itself taught me a lesson on procrastination and initiative.
I was crammed in the back seat of my friends Honda accord. Comfortably, it seats five, today we had seven. "If only my stomach was this full," I thought, as we sped down the highway to our destination. The ride was only an hour and despite the rough ride, it wasn't that bad. The entire way down my friends discussed what sushi they were going to get, I didn't understand anything they were talking about. When my friend Jake asked if I would split an order of California and tuna rolls with him, I made the first decision that would betray my taste buds and said sure.
We finally arrived at the Chinese restaurant at six o'clock. As I got out of the car, I looked at the building. It was in a shopping complex and was snuggled between a dentist’s office and a Subway. It looked ordinary. I expected the building to be as strange as I thought the food was and this made me start to warm up to the idea. I was hungry, I promised a friend I would split some sushi with him, and the place didn't look bad at all. Things are actually looking pretty good.
After we were seated, the waitress brought out hot tea, some thin crackers, and an orange sauce for us to eat as a sort of appetizer. The food looked inviting, and I was hungry. So, I decided to eat. I didn't question what it was until later when I found out it was krupuk (a cracker made from a seafood paste) and duck sauce. The fact that it was a mystery food was a huge step for me, and now knowing what I was eating, it was an even larger leap than I first thought.
When it came time to order, I had Jake order for me. He chose hot and spicy chicken. "Spicy chicken and rice?" I thought, “It doesn't sound too bad." I couldn't have been more right. When the meal came it was delicious. I was so hungry, I forgot I was eating and ENJOYING vegetables, chicken, and rice all mixed in a strange sauce. I was going through an epiphany. Just because something may look or sound un-appetizing at first, doesn't mean that it is. Then it hit me, I still had one more culinary obstacle to overtake: sushi.
Just as I realized that I still had the task of eating raw fish ahead of me, it was being placed on the table. I looked at it and it wasn't what I expected at all. A tiny little roll laced in rice with what looked like cucumber and crab meat inside. My friends all watched me as I picked it up. If I was going to vomit, this was probably one of the most enjoyable things they were waiting for. I was starting to sweat a bit. It could have been the fact that I had just finished something hot and spicy or it could have been the fact that I was about to eat raw fish with 6 other people watching. To this day I still don't know.
It was now or never, so I popped it in my mouth. It was like something I've never tasted before. It was sweet yet spicy, and to this day I still can not categorize it in any flavor but its own. My friends, looking for some type of amusement were shocked when I told them how delicious it was.
For the remainder of the night I didn’t eat much of anything else. Well, I did have some popcorn and a coke at the movies (not doing that would be breaking a movie theater commandment). But nothing that night had been more enjoyable than that meal. It had opened my sense of taste to a plethora of options. Weeks later, I experienced the wonders of Taco Bell. Months after that, I joined my friends once again at an Indian restaurant in Pittsburgh. To this day, I still make a monthly trip to the same Chinese restaurant; every time trying something new and always looking for a new way to stimulate my taste buds. This reminds me never to judge anything, by any means, ever again.
