The Chinese Grandmother

I have verbally recited the following little story so many times that it has become part of my oral history.  It seems fitting fodder for this blog which, at times, serves as my written history.

I worked in downtown Minneapolis from June 1980 to September 2007.  During the middle third of that twenty-seven year span, I developed the following, rather loosely constructed weekly lunch schedule to which I adhered more often than not:

Mondays: Pizza at Ginelli's, located in the TCF Tower.
Tuesdays: Chicken chow mein at Bamboo Garden, located in the Northstar Center.
Wednesdays: Chili at The Loon (First Ave & 5th Street) if I was flush, otherwise at the Park Cafe located in the Hennepin County Government Center.
Thursdays: Italian meat loaf at Sorrento, located in the Northstar Center.
Fridays: Wild Card, i.e., pick somewhere different each week.

Tuesday lunches at the Bamboo Garden were a special treat for me, because there I would have a ninety second encounter with one of my all-time favorite restaurant people, who is the title character of this post.  Ironically and sadly, I can no longer remember her name.  For this post I'm going to call her "Liu."

One would think it would not be all that difficult to find good chow mein in a major city's downtown, but that was the case in Minneapolis back in the nineties.  I guess we are too far from the west coast to be afforded a large number of choices. In any event, after sampling chicken chow mein at the handful of places serving it within a reasonable walking distance, Bamboo Garden, right across Marquette Avenue from my office, was the winner.  Still operating today in the same Northstar Center location, Bamboo Garden is a Chinese restaurant where the customers, immediately upon entering, go through a cafeteria style line.  The routine calls for picking up a tray, moving from right to left while looking through the glass at the tempting offerings, and communicating selections to an employee behind the glass.  As alluded to above, I did not spend any time mulling over my choice of lunch; it was going to be chicken chow mein, no matter what else was on display.

The employee at the start of the line was Liu, always ready with a smile which would momentarily allow you to forget the stress, politics and mayhem of the office you just left.  Her diminutive stature and winning personality reminded me of my Italian grandma.  Seeing and speaking with Liu was always the highlight of my weekly Bamboo Garden visits, to be immediately followed by the lowlight (explained shortly).  Although I am terrible at guessing a person's age, it's safe to say that Liu was in her seventies, probably a grandmother and perhaps even a great grandmother.  I'm also fairly confident in guessing that she was related to and likely the mother of the much younger woman, whom I'll refer to as "Zhi," at the end of the line.  Zhi multi-tasked behind the counter as the manager and cashier.

Liu's most charming aspect was that she appeared to speak almost no English.  In fact, in all the years I went through her line at the Bamboo Garden, I only heard her say three quasi-sentences, which were interrogatories:

"Here to go?"  Did I plan to eat my lunch in the adjoining dining room, or was this going to be a take-out order?  I always opted for the former.

"Fwie wie, wie wie?"  (Each rhyming with "rye.")  Did I want fried rice or white rice with my chow mein?  Again, I always opted for the former.

Her third question was the one I cherished the most: "Ah pah tie zah?"  Did I want an appetizer, such as an egg roll?  I usually declined.  What I really wanted was for Liu to repeat that third question, but of course I never asked her to do so.  I counted on hearing it every Tuesday afternoon, and she never let me down!

A few months after I started eating at the Bamboo Garden, I told my kids about Liu's marvelous third question.  Her unique pronunciation of "appetizer" thereupon became a staple of the family lexicon.  No one at our dining room table -- well, except for Momma Cuandito -- ever pronounced the word other than in the fashion originated by Liu.  It is an established tradition at the Quentin Estates.

Unfortunately, but understandably, Zhi did not share the enduring charisma of Liu.  Zhi was all business and at times even stern.  She kept the line moving and simultaneously oversaw the dining room, making sure tables were cleared and the bus boys were doing their job.  The lunch business downtown is highly competitive, and I'm sure Zhi felt the burden.  Still, in her apparent quest to turn a profit, she had one practice which was annoying and ridiculous.

As the food plate made its way from Liu's end to Zhi, Zhi would closely examine the portion, making sure that Liu had not been too generous with her ladle full of food.  If Liu had put too much chicken in the chow mein, Zhi would take a pair of tongs, pick the excess chicken off and place it back in the pot.  Keep in mind that what we're talking about here is not ribeye or lobster; it's chicken!  The pieces of chicken were usually tiny, no bigger than the surface area on the nail of a person's little finger.  It would be rare for me to get through the line without Zhi removing four or five of the infinitesimally small nuggets.  If I didn't like Liu so much, Zhi's absurd frugality would have been a show stopper.

I patronized Bamboo Garden for many years.  Then for a string of three or four consecutive weeks  I noticed Liu was no longer there.  I don't know why, but hopefully it was a voluntary retirement in good health.  For a short time afterward I even peeked in the restaurant's window facing 7th Street whenever I happened to be walking by, but there was no sign of her.  Liu's absence opened the door for me to satisfy my Chinese food craving on Tuesdays at a different restaurant called Canton Village, located in the Soo Line Building.  The specialty there was kung pao chicken.  I ate at Canton Village on Tuesdays for at least five years until the owners lost their lease.  Not once did the manager remove any excess chicken from my plate.