My Funny Dining Stories When I First Came to America

Two years ago, I said goodbye to my old friends and packed as much stuff as I could to move to Seattle, including a rick cooker stuffed with several pairs of socks for anti-friction protection. But, the result is it takes one and a half hours to cook. In fact, there are tons of variety of rice cookers we can buy from Asian markets and Amazon.

I used to go to Chinese restaurants even though I define myself a foodie. The true reason was I couldn't understand at all those non-visualized menus crammed with unfamiliar vocabularies. I got a trick from one of my friends, "Can I have the same order as that table has, it looks very good." The nightmare started. When the dishes were severed, they were completely not delightful as what I saw from that table. I pretended that the meal was enjoyable when the waiter came to ask, actually, I just swallowed a jalapeno wrapped with bacons or bit a stinky cheese. 

I regaled those unforgettable stories with my friends, they taught me to use YELP to look up food photos. Afterwards, my dining conversation was " Can I have this, this and this?" while pointing at those exact food photos I checked out on YELP in advance and downloaded on my cellphone. But, it didn't go well either. When they asked me further questions to choose some specific sauces or ingredients, my answer was "No, thank you," from the beginning to the end of the order process. Waiters were looking at me with their slightly surprised expressions. I pretended myself a very picky eater. 

My friends laughed about my dining stories. Then, pizza became my comfort zone. The word of pizza is literally translated into Chinese based on its English pronunciation. When I shout out this word with my full confidence, nobody gets befuddles with my Chinese accent. Pizza calms my blushing face and soothe my panic as long as the waiter doesn't ask me to created my own-style pizza. 

I thought cooking at home would be the most cost-effective and safest way. But the problem was I had to go to markets to buy ingredients. It took almost two hours on my first grocery-shopping trip. The most embarrassing moment was when I hit the button to check the pronunciation of the word I was looking up to, I forgot to plug in my earbud headphone. "Baby bok choy," the unemotional robotic voice was loudly coming from my cellphone. "It's my new ring tone," I said with my awkward smiling. 

My friends brought me to Din Tai Fung to alleviate my feeling of nostalgia. I felt comfortable eating soup dumplings which was one of my favorites back in China, and soup dumplings connected people from different crowds together in this cozy restaurant. "Excuse me, can I have a bubble tea?" I asked the Asian face waiter. "Do you want to have tapiocas?" "No, thank you. I don't like it." But, when my friend explained to me the word of tapioca, I just want to stash myself in a secret corner. I know my funny dining story will be continued. 



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