I am driving to Alexandria, Chinatown, with Lizzie for some good Chinese food. The road after the bridge is very steep, maybe 40 degrees, but it is straight up. I think the car will manage. But Lizzie goes on ahead, she’s faster, with her little black Vespa.
And I am trying to shout directions from my car but she continues to climb further away.
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“Turn right!” I call out, as she reaches the top.
I cannot see her, once she disappears off to the right, in amongst the restaurants there.
I follow her up, but when I arrive at the square at the top of the hill, I do not see her.
A smartly dressed Chinese woman is there.
“She caused an accident,” she says, “and bumped into someone.”
“Oh no! Where is she?” I reply. And the woman leads me to her restaurant.
“I put her in here as a punishment.”
She opens the bottom drawer of a large brown chest of drawers. Lizzie is wearing coke bottle glasses and lying on a blanket.
“She should stay in longer,” the woman says. But then the woman looks at her watch, and she changes her mind.
Lizzie gets out.
“Let’s look for a good Chinese restaurant,” I say to her.
“Do you have room for two?” I ask the woman.
“No, we are fully booked.”
So we go along a narrow lane past myriad restaurants full with people. I poke my head into another place and hold up two fingers.
“Room for two?” I ask.
“No, fully booked,” is the reply.
We try a couple more. Then further down, there is an emptier restaurant, with room at the bar. But it is Japanese.
Before I can say anything Lizzie has stepped in.
“But we were going to eat Chinese,” I thought. We step up to the high seats by the bar.
The menu has pictures of sushi, but I want something else. On another page there is a picture of a roasted chicken, curled up in a ball. Pictures in menus are never good. Then I see Peking Duck. Perhaps that will be good.
Under my stool there is a large glob of fat, the size of a soccer ball, between the four legs. The translucent yellow blob moves slowly… rolls. I should adjust the stool to get away from it.
Photo of a different Chinatown by Tony Webster via WikiMedia Commons
