"Why order something I grew up eating? Perhaps it's exhaustion, I find myself indulging in nostalgia."
By Xiaoya Yuan
“What should we get for dinner?” Anthony mumbles.
The two of us are splayed on the couch in our new but barely furnished apartment. We have just spent the entire day moving luggage between the Lower East Side and South Williamsburg by subway, up-and-down five flights of stairs, nine if you count the train station. This is New York City, after all. A “pre-war,” “five-floor walk-up” means an excuse for expensive rent, but this apartment is now ours, and we are glad for it.
We can hear our stomachs grumble. Anthony usually asks me what to eat because I am the pickier one. He has no real preferences for flavor or texture, but this doesn’t seem to bother him. I grab my phone and begin the banal task of browsing Caviar. This is the perfect image for a delivery app advertisement: a hip interracial couple in a big city, too tired to cook but energetic enough to browse menus for what would feel like the next several hours.
I don’t remember craving Chinese food since I came to the United States two years ago. New York City has too much else to offer. Besides, how can Chinese food be as cheap and delicious as it is back home? And why choose something I grew up eating? Perhaps it is our exhaustion; I find myself indulging in nostalgia.
After scrolling through Caviar aimlessly, we landed on Win Son, a Taiwanese restaurant that offers more than just beef and broccoli stir-fry.
"I don’t remember craving Chinese food since I came to the United States two years ago. New York City has too much else to offer."
I place an order of zhajiangmian and scallion pancakes—two dishes I am fond of—and a Big Chicken Bun for Anthony, who would gobble anything up without a second thought.
After only half an hour, our food arrives. Everything is neatly placed within clean Tupperware rather than cheap paperboard boxes. The aroma wafting from the containers is enough to make my mouth water. We wipe everything down with sheets of Lysol, wash our hands, and sit down to eat at our newly assembled IKEA table.
As I open the box of scallion pancakes, my stomach immediately sinks. The pancakes are cut into quarter pieces, and stacked on top of one another. They are a pale yellow and the surface appears too flat, as if the pancakes are not fried at all. Had they been steamed? I pick up one piece and take a meager bite.
Too thick! Too dense! Too floury!
I turn to the zhajiangmian, or noodles with fried bean sauce. Now, this looks promising. As soon as I begin to stir up the sauce and the noodles, however, I know something is wrong—the texture feels dubious, and the smell is not particularly pleasant. But still, I take a bite.
Too soggy!
The noodles almost melt in the over-sweetened and over-thickened sauce. I learn my lesson. Not just soup noodles; no noodles can be trusted when they are delivered. Noodles are now my sworn enemies.
I look across the table. Anthony seems happy with his big chicken bun. His enthusiastic bites remind me of how I long for scallion pancakes back home, ones that are fried until golden and crisp. Or the zhajiangmian with perfectly al-dente noodles, bathed in a rich sauce that balances both sweet and savory.
Yum!
But, alas, this is New York City.
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Xiaoya Yuan is a second-year MA student in Food Studies, and her main interest is in food, media and diaspora.