We used to order from this take-out restaurant. A lot. East Asia - simple Chinese and Thai food. They had the most amazing tofu. It was homemade. And their food was fresh and definitely different from any other Asian take-out joint in the area. We tried them all, too. It wasn’t fancier or anything, it was just different. And, once you got your head around it - or your taste buds, I guess - you realized it was so much better.
It was owned by two couples. I think the wives were sisters. The husbands certainly weren’t brothers, anyway. The wives did the cooking. The husbands delivered the food.
We got to know them pretty well. Not by name, simply by frequency. They didn’t know our names either - just our address. And our faces, of course. We lived just two blocks away. Literally: two blocks. They would bring the food so quickly. We felt bad making them come such a short distance, so we tipped them a lot. I mean, we could have just called up, ordered, and gone to pick it up ourselves. The food would have been ready by the time we walked there. We never did, though. Well, maybe once, just for a lark. Or some other reason - like when we were headed home from somewhere and had a hankering for that tofu. We’d call it in for pick up, and then, when we got there, they’d say, “Oh! It’s you!”
You could eat there, if you wanted - at the place. But there were only about four tables and it got a little weird, trying to eat with the door constantly opening and closing, the take-out orders coming and going, the delivery orders coming and going, having to acknowledge those guys going out and coming back in - having to acknowledge them ‘cause we kind of knew them and they kept acknowledging us. And they went in and out a lot.
And somehow the food, served on all-white, thick, heavy, industrial food service-style plates, it just wasn’t as good. Somehow, traveling in tin foil and plastic containers, inside a brown paper bag stapled closed with about 16 staples, resting on a hand-cut piece of cardboard that fit the bottom of the bag, and all nestled inside a thin, plastic grocery bag, somehow that just made it taste better.
Nah, not really. I’d like to believe that, but I’m pretty sure it pretty much tasted the same either way. And it was hotter when it was served at their place, obviously. Either way, it always tasted great. Anyway, after eating there for a time or two, we realized it was more fun to get it delivered. And I think we felt self-conscious that, when we ate there, they felt obliged to say hello to us each time they went in and out.
We also tipped them a lot just because we knew them so well (albeit not by name). And because they were always happy to take special orders.
Like, I’d call and order the Yu Shiang Tofu with Broccoli, and then I’d ask if they could put tomatoes in it, too.
“Tomato?” they would ask back.
“Yes.”
“Uh . . . hold on, please . . . “ and you could hear the guy - the guys always answered the phone, except maybe when they were really busy and both of them were out delivering orders - you could hear him in a muffled voice in another language asking whoever was cooking about adding the tomatoes.
Inevitably, after a few seconds, he would get back on the phone and say, “Yes, sure, no problem!”
This happened every time we’d ask for something like this - even if it was the third or fourth or seventeenth time in a row that we had asked for tomatoes with the tofu and broccoli. Same routine, word-for-word. I didn’t mind, I was impressed. They were so polite and respectful. It was also a little amusing.
*
I ordered so often that one of the guys eventually got really comfortable with me. He started asking me vocabulary questions. When he would deliver me the food, he would say, “Excuse me, may I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” I would say.
He’d hold up one finger to indicate that I should hold on just a moment, there, at the door, holding my food in the brown-paper, stapled-shut bag inside a thin plastic grocery bag. He’d go to his car, and come back with a library book that he was reading.
“What does this word mean, please?” And he’d point to the word. He read a wide range of books - many that you might not expect. Titles like “Chesapeake” by James Michener, Woodward and Bernstein’s “All the President’s Men,” and Dan Brown’s “The DaVinci Code.”
I would read the word and the sentence it was in, and then I would do my best to explain to him as thoroughly as I could what the word meant, and why, in particular, it was being used in this context. He would stand, gratefully, holding the book open, still pointing at the word, listening and thinking. And I would be smiling, often really challenged to explain the word and the complete context in simple terms, holding my bag of take-out Yu Shiang tofu, broccoli, and tomatoes. And he was always very grateful. And I was always very glad to help.
*
We really loved their tofu. We couldn’t get past it. Every time we’d get it, we would say, “God, their tofu is amazing!“ It got to be pretty rare, when we ordered from East Asia, that we didn’t order the tofu. And there were never any leftovers, try as we might.
We once asked my guy if they would sell us their tofu in bulk. My guy smiled. He said no.
*
There was a period there when we would make our own rice. We were on a short-grain brown rice kick for a while. Also, occasionally, we were trying to eat low-carb, thinking we could keep it up somehow. Either way, we realized it could save us a couple of bucks.
We’d call and order and say, “No rice, please.”
“No rice?!” they’d say incredulously. They were dubious.
We got the same response each time. Sometimes, we’d try to explain what we were doing, that we were trying to go low-carb. They replied with puzzlement, “Oh.” They didn’t really get it. Or they didn’t believe it. And it got to be a bit of a pain in the ass. So, at some point, we just let them bring the rice.
And of course, we ate the rice. So much for going low-carb.
It became a joke. We laughed out ourselves, at our idiocy. We’d say to one another, “You know what we could do?”
“What?”
“We could make our own rice - save a couple of bucks!”
It still is one of our joking routines. Whenever we reminisce about East Asia tofu, we say this, like we’re repeating the dialogue from a scene from a Seinfeld episode.
Somehow, though, the guys at East Asia caught on, because at some point thereafter they started offering brown rice. Short-grain, too. Somehow, they knew.
*
Once, I asked my guy, when he came to the door with my food, if he knew anything about the Yeren - the Chinese version of Bigfoot. But either he didn’t understand my question, or he thought I was saying “urine” or something - or maybe he had been sworn to secrecy, or feared reprisal from Beijing or something - because he just furrowed his brow, looked very puzzled, shook his head slowly, and said, “No.”
*
Earlier I said they never got to know our names. That’s not true. I’m sure they did. I know they did. But they never used them. I think they didn’t want to seem too forward. I wouldn’t have minded, of course, but I could tell that that was how they wanted it to be, so I went along. The way I know they knew our names is that, when I ordered, even when I ordered Yu Shiang Tofu with Broccoli and asked for tomatoes to be added, even when I gave them the same delivery address, they would ask, “Name?”
And I would say, “Rob.”
“Oh! It’s you! Hi.”
“Hey, how are you?”
“Good, good . . . ok, ten, fifteen minutes. Thank you.”
*
Sometimes I would order their food when I was sick. They’d bring it, see that I was sick, and say that I should have told them, that they would have put special ingredients in the food or bring me ginger soup or something else that would have helped with the cold. Their version of chicken soup, I guess. I never did though. I never wanted to put them out.
*
This all happened when we lived together in Somerville. At some point, after we’d all lived together long enough to claim common-law marriage to one another, our time as roommates - what we had decided was our “last great fraternal hurrah before adulthood" - finally came to an end. One of us moved to Northampton. I moved to Cambridge to live with my girlfriend.
So, I stopped ordering from East Asia.
I stopped ordering because I figured I lived too far away for them to deliver anymore. But then, one time when I was sick, I thought I’d give it a try. So I ordered. They had no problem with my new address and the delivery distance it imposed.
“Wow,” I thought.
When my guy came to my door, rang the bell, and I answered, he smiled broadly, “Oh! It’s you!” he said. I smiled broadly, too.
*
One time, my guy made a delivery to me all the way over in Cambridge and then he changed my life forever.
When he gave me my food - my tofu - he told me that this would be the last delivery. They were closing the restaurant, he said with a smile. They were retiring, he then said with pride. He was beaming.
I was heartbroken. I was crestfallen. But I was also delighted for them. And impressed. In a quick flash of perception, I realized that they’d worked tirelessly for years. That they had saved every dollar they could - every tip. That they never took a day off, let alone a vacation - at least none that we could ever detect. That they had never bought a new car for deliveries. And that they had never bought books, they had only taken them out of the library.
He was beaming. I was blown away. And oddly, and as patronizing as it sounds, I was proud of him. Of them. They weren’t that old. They weren’t in failing health. They were still together as a family and they were going to retire together. I got the feeling that their American Dream had come true.
Despite being crestfallen about the end of the delicious tofu, I just smiled widely and congratulated him, told him I was so happy for them. I repeated myself and my guy stood there, smiling, with his hands clasped behind his back.
Then we said goodbye, smiling at one another.
*
Does anyone out there still have the take-out menu from East Asia? I used to have one in our kitchen drawer - the drawer with the folder filled with take-out menus. But it appears someone has recycled it.
I mean, I know they’re no longer in business and they’re enjoying their retirement - I just have a lot of good memories associated with that menu.
Also, I don’t need the menu itself, if you have one and want to hold onto it, too, for similar sentimental reasons. I’d be happy to have just a copy or a scan of it so that I can make it my laptop wallpaper. And post it here on this Bflog.
If you do, please let me know. There’s free BRO stuff of your choosing in it for you, if you do - not to mention really good karma.