Reality Equation

Hui Cuisine with Han Shu & Shenxiao Ting

Returning to Hefei gave me the opportunity to meet up with Han Shu and Shenxiao Ting properly after a year. Han Shu had come to Hampshire over January term at the peak of New England’s cold, harsh winter. I was at Smith for most of that time, so we were only able to explore parts of Northampton and Amherst. But being in Hefei where both of them go to uni meant that we could revisit our favorite Hefei food places (and make the whole farewell ritual in the US rather anti-climatic, which is all well).

And so we started with a Hui restaurant not too far from campus.

Although China is predominantly Han, its 55 other officially-recognized ethnicities bring important variety to the already vast landscape of Chinese cuisine. The Hui people — muslim Chinese — are the third largest ethnic minority here with a population of around 10 million all over China (but concentrated mostly in Northwestern China). Hui food distinguishes itself from regular Chinese cuisine with the absence of pork, the most common meat in China. The way food is prepared is also different and rather specific. I won’t go into it (mostly because I haven’t a clue), but if you’re interested, this guide to Huangshan has more.

The first requirement to enjoying excellent food at the this  small street-side restaurant is not dying whilst crossing the road. At the other end of campus, where we need to cross the main expressway of Changjiang Xi road to Jialefu (Carrefour), there’s an overhead walkway. Crossing the road poses no danger whatsoever, and is a whole lot safer than walking on the pavement where cars honk at your for not giving them way. Here, though, you need to find a break in the stream of cars, lorries and motorcycles and make a run for it.

I look to my left and see a crosswalk. “So why,” I turn to Han Shu, “are we not using the crosswalk, exactly?”

— “Nobody uses it,” he says, grinning. He looks first to his left and then to his right, adding, “it’s all the same for the cars”.

When in Rome, right?

The restaurant, with a familiar board announcing its name in red Chinese characters as well as in Arabic, brought another wave of déjà-vu. It was around the same time in the evening that we last went there, and I wondered if we were talking to the same people.

One of them reached for the lid of one of the two big pots on boil at the restaurant entrance, and the other threw strings of freshly-knead dough in.

While Han Shu talked to the laobanya to select but a few dishes from the list of what seemed a gazillion (admittedly because a lot of the characters were ones unfamiliar to me), I perused the huge menu plastered all over the other wall.

— “I’ll have that,” I said in Chinese, pointing to a photo of rather appetizing noodle, and Han Shu added it to the order.

Although I much prefer ordering meals by reading the menu and talking to the fuwuyuan, which is great for language practice, there are times your limited vocabulary starts limiting the dishes you can eat. This is when photos come in really useful. If it looks good, all I have to do is ask, “Zhèlǐ yǒu shénme?” (What’s in it?) or “Zhège yǒu shénme ròu?” (What meat is it?) and I’m good to go. Especially at a unique place whose offerings one may not be familiar with, it helps having a way to try new dishes without worrying about what you mind end up eating.

We ordered a whole lot of things involving noodles, beef, tofu and vegetables. Standard-fare, you’d think, until, voilà, the food arrives:

The entire thing was made rather interesting thanks to an eleventh-hour injury to my finger which made negotiating chopsticks that much more of a challenge:

When we were done catching up, Han Shu and Shenxiao Ting insisted the meal be on them this time. “Because you’re guests here”, Han Shu reminded me. The unspoken understanding is that I reciprocate sometime later (which I eventually did at a rather impressive tea place we had also been to last year).

As we were walking out of the restaurant, headed back to the campus as the low sun put a golden tint on the busy world outside, the laobanya spoke to Han Shu. “你是好的外国人，我认识” she says too fast for me to understand, waving at us.

– “What did she say?” I ask Han Shu as we walk on.

– “You’re a good foreigner,” he grins, “she remembers you from last year.”