Thursday 10/17/02                        Onion Cheesecake and Taiwan Logic

 

This morning I was hurting to get up and go to class.  Deb and Stella were there already, all chipper and asking how I felt, Ginger laughed at me, and as if trying to make me feel better, Eric said he only got 2-3 hours sleep.  Even though he left the club before us.  I didn’t ask why and didn’t want to know.  I grumbled to Stella, “At least you get to go home and sleep after this!”  She brightened as if just remembering, “Oh yeah!” 

 

Made dinner plans with Ginger and Jia-Lan.  We went to a new place Ginger’s seen next to Dan Ryan’s, an Irish place called Shannons, very colorful with Guinness signs everywhere and the décor made to look like an Irish pub.  It even had Irish food products and ingredients as decorations on the walls.  Jia-Lan got a meat and potatoes dish, Ginger a meat pot pie , and I a Caesar salad.  I think I was the happiest with my dish, since theirs were ALL meat, not a veggie in sight.  Though at home I wouldn’t think it a very good salad, I ate every bit since it was actually romaine leaves, croutons, parmesan and bacon and caesar dressing, woo, things I haven’t seen in ages…and everything was in big chunks, even the romaine were practically whole leaves that hadn’t been shredded, like they thought big meant American (or in this case, Irish). 

 

Ginger and I ordered Bailey’s Irish cream cheesecake for dessert which sounded good, but it definitely tasted weird and we couldn’t place what it was like.  I thought it just maybe went bad, and kept nibbling away like maybe I’d get used to it, until Ginger said with sudden revelation, “Onions!” and Jia-Lan agreed, “Yes, tastes something like spring onions,” I threw my fork down unable to eat after that.  As we cracked up Ginger said she at first thought maybe it was stored next to onions in fridge or the knife they used to cut onions was used on this cake, so she kept eating but the inside tasted all the same.   We rehearsed what we should say and nominated Jia-Lan for the task since she’s in the higher Chinese class.  As usual when we waved down the waitress she looked all concerned (service people here can’t believe that people actually complain about things, it’s just so unheard of to actually voice your opinion if you’re not happy with something).  Jia-Lan said it seemed to taste like it’d gone bad, the waitress said “[Uh, I’ll go ask,]” and took it away.  Ask what?  Like she needed confirmation from someone else that it really did taste bad and we weren’t making it up?  She came back and apologized, said there’s lemon yogurt in it and maybe that’s what we don’t like about the taste.  But, it didn’t taste like lemon.  Or yogurt.  She added that “[many other customers have said the same thing.]”  And…?  If they have, why are you still serving it…? 

 

As we were pondering this impeccable logic, she asked us, “[Do you want a brownie instead?]”  Um, just…a brownie?  I asked, “With ice cream on it or like, just…a brownie?  And are they gonna charge us for that and the cheesecake too?”  “Probably just a brownie, and I’m sure they’re gonna charge.”  We were saying all this in English plain in front of the waitress’s face--since communication with her in Chinese wasn’t working, why bother being discreet with the English?   So we said Nothing never mind, so she didn’t charge us for either. Whew.

 

Jia-Lan cabbed home while Ginger and I went to Haagen Dazs to get our dessert fix.  The one nearby is the closest and largest store I know, with two floors like a large café and looks like a small white castle from the outside.  Inside it was freezing and when we were seated upstairs we found there’s a 10% seating charge, doh.  We asked them to turn down the air-con and the waitress said, “[Actually, this is the warmest spot in the place,]” smiled and walked off.  And then…?  What part of “Can you turn down the air-con” does that answer?  Sigh.

 

I’ve coined the new phrase “Taiwan logic” to describe it.  Whenever you don’t understand something here, just shrug it off, “Taiwan logic!”  It saves a lot of headache.

 

Ginger got strawberry cheesecake flavor to get her cheesecake fix, and I got Cookies ‘n Cream since I was through being adventurous.  It was good but the bill mad expensive.  We decided next time to order take out and sit on the benches outside, avoid the service charge and not freeze our asses off.  That’s called American logic.