by Eddie Huang
“Hey, Eddie. I gotta ask you. I see these T-shirts, too, they say ‘Cool Story, Bro.’ What’s that mean?”
“If someone tells you a shitty story, then you respond ironically, ‘Cool story, bro,’ to their really not cool story.”
“Cool story, bro,” he said with a smile.
“Loser,” I said as I pushed him.
I definitely could have been DJ Cool Story, Bro.
“What are you playing at these cool parties of yours?”
“Man, they make me play the wack shit sometimes.”
“Who makes you play the wack shit?”
“The owner of Jellyfish, the club we throw party. Old Israeli guy he like-a the Pitbull, Katy Perry, super wack shit, bro.”
“What do you want to play, though?”
“I know everything. From backpack rap like Boot Camp to Fabolous to new stuff like A$AP and Kendrick, I play it all. China is slow, we get everything late, but once we get it we take the time, pay attention, listen to everything.”
“You don’t have to wait. You can just download online with VPN, right?”
“Eddie, I don’t even know where to search! I know the Chinese hip-hop sites, but they put up tapes months after already out in America.”
“OK, lemme see your computer.”
I took his computer, used his VPN, and took him to the vault.
“All right, this is going to solve your problem. Really easy, just go to datpiff.com and you get all the new mixtapes. You want to read news, go to nahright.com. You want more news, go to Noisey on Vice. You need more stuff, email me.”
“Fuck! Cool, bro. This is awesome. What should I download?”
“Everyone playing Migos in the club right now. You should play that Chinatown shit and see what people think out here.”
“They have a song called ‘Chinatown’?”
“Yeah, it’s dope.”
“OK, downloading now.”
We sat there looking at the download that went from five minutes, to eight minutes, to thirty minutes, to an hour, and just sat at 2 percent downloaded for a good ten minutes.
“Like I said, Eddie, not so easy. VPN get you on the site, but this never going to download.”
It didn’t seem like a big deal, but I saw Rabbi literally crumble. He put his head in his hands, closed up his laptop, and dragged his feet across the floor as he went to put the computer away.
“It’s no big deal, man, just leave your computer open and it’ll download.”
“Eddie…even when you showing me, telling me it’s easy, I already know this going to happen. You are not first American I’ve met tell me they can help me get songs. This is China, man, if they don’t want us to see something, we not going to see it.”
Rabbi’s melodramatic response to the dream deferred of a Migos mixtape aside, I was beginning to understand that being Chinese in Chengdu was like being a goldfish. You can see the outside world, you might be able to hear the outside world, but you can’t touch it, at least not in real time. He took it really hard. Or maybe I was taking it too lightly. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a world I couldn’t touch.
—
We got back in the Skoda for about ten minutes and drove to a corner noodle spot. The shoulder of the road was packed with scooters, mopeds, bikes, and people were streaming in and out of the spot. All around us were construction sites, and I figured most people eating there were working nearby. The building probably wasn’t ever intended to be a restaurant because the curb and the street were about three feet higher than the entrance, but they cut a moat between the street and the restaurant that now served as a sort of patio. Everyone sat on stools below street level with their torsos popping out above traffic, which made for a periscope-like dining experience.
“Eddie, this is Lu Zhou Lao Mian Gwan.*4 Very local place we come to eat noodles and have big sweat.”
Sichuan being a hot place, you want to sweat while you eat to cool down. It’s good for your circulation and inner chi. You’ll see people eating soup, chilis, and hot food year round just to sweat.
“Do they serve dan-dan noodles here?”
“Ha ha, you got to be kidding me, man. I thought you are chef! Who still eat dan-dan noodles?”
“What do you mean? Dan-dan noodles is the most famous noodles from Sichuan! I wanted to try dan-dan noodles in Sichuan because I’ve never had a good bowl of Sichuan dan-dan noodles anywhere else.”
“Man, you never have a good bowl because dan-dan noodles is not that good. It’s old stuff. People think it is fun because vendors used to walk through the streets with stick on shoulder going ‘dan-dan’ with buckets on the end. Dan-dan is old shit for the tourists, nothing special.”
“You don’t like it because it’s too basic?”
“It’s small. Dan-dan mian too small.”
“So you don’t like it, but it’s too small? You’re a walking Woody Allen joke.”
“Woody what?”
“Never mind.”
I never liked Sichuan dan-dan mian. First, because everyone got it confused with Taiwanese dan-dan mian that my dad grew up eating on Yong Kang Jie, which was a bone-stock-based noodle soup with crushed peanuts and tza tsai, spicy pickled radish. A classic and irresistible dish. As opposed to Sichuan dan-dan mian, which was just noodles sitting in chili oil with a half teaspoon of ground pork, sesame paste, and cilantro.
They were basically sesame butter and chili oil sandwiches, but everyone in America held this up as one of the canonical Sichuan dishes alongside ma po tofu, water braised chili beef (shui ju niu), and the equally unimpressive Sichuan beef noodle soup. I kept trying dan-dan mian in Chengdu just to make sure it wasn’t terrible, because everyone who had visited Chengdu, from aunts and uncles to Fuchsia Dunlop, still swore by it. Yet, I still couldn’t understand why Rabbi despised it.
“Dan-dan mian is famous, but locals don’t eat it, Eddie. Shu jiao zha jian mian*5 is better. You wouldn’t go out for dan-dan mian because it’s too small.”
“OK, but what if someone sold it in a stall or food court as a snack, you still don’t like it?”
“Naw, if I’m at the food court I’ll get liang mian because it’s bigger.”
“FINE, so if it’s the same size as liang mian, you wouldn’t eat it?”
“EDDIE! I tell you, I can’t explain why I don’t like dan-dan mian, but it sucks. It is old shit like hot dog in America. People all know hamburger, but who wants shitty hamburger?”
“But I would show you a really good hamburger. I could take you to Peter Luger’s or make one for you myself.”
“So, dan-dan mian not like hamburger then because there is nowhere I can take you for great dan-dan mian. Dan-dan mian just not cool, man. I guess more like hot dog!”
“OK, hot dogs fucking suck, but I had a good one at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. What about chili wontons? That’s the same preparation as dan-dan mian, you like that, right?”
“What do you mean preparation?”
“You know, when you make hao yo hwin dwin.”
“Oh yes, I see what you mean, yes, I like that, too. Wonton has more flavor and goes well, but noodle by itself, dan-dan, come on, man, you know better!” Rabbi said, exasperated.
“I actually don’t, but you should show me.”
“OK, we ask this guy, see what he think.”
Rabbi turned to the table behind us eating a bowl of noodles. “Eh, da gu, my friend here is from America and he wants to try dan-dan mian, do you think there is a place you would recommend for dan-dan mian?”
With a head full of sweat and a bowl in his hand, son shook his head and chopsticks at us while the noodles waved from side to side out of his mouth.
“AHHH! Dan-dan mian? Who eats dan-dan mian still?”
“See, Eddie! Dan-dan mian like how you fools eat egg foo young! Ha ha, old shit, man.”
After he marinated in his victory for a minute, Rabbi broke down the menu for me.
“OK, so here there is two style
s: gan mian or tang mian. Dry beef noodles or chicken noodles with some stock. It’s lu zhou sin jiao niu roh mian or la ji gan dan mian, so you pick.”
“I want to try both.”
“OK, we get both and share. Two bowls is too much for one person, even Human Panda like you.”
We sat down at a folding table and grabbed the first two available stools as I watched them prepare the noodles. The reputation of hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurants is that they’re dirty and grimy, organized chaos, but Lu Zhou Lao Mian Gwan wasn’t like that. Sure, having customers dine al fresco on a six-lane highway might seem bugged out, but in the eye of the storm, the kitchen was on point. Everything was organized assembly line–style with the cashier facing the street, away from a noodle station with one cook working two pots of boiling water. He pulled basket after basket of hot noodles out of the water and into bowls that were passed to him already filled with their proprietary noodle sauce, aromatic chilis, and garlic.
Every time the cook manning the noodle station pulled noodles out, homie with the bowls hit him in the breadbasket. It was like watching Peyton Manning run stretch right with Edgerrin James flanking him toward paydirt with garlic and chili confetti falling from the roof. On top of the noodles, they dropped a scoop of sautéed pork, chicken, or beef, depending on your order, and a grip of the requisite cilantro. But the meat wasn’t just some Manwich mystery meat out of a can that your favorite lunch lady plopped on an enriched wheat bun. Every one of their meats was sautéed and seasoned with a different mixture. The pork got blessed with shallots, the beef touched by chili oil, and the chicken got a gang of pork fat. Our bowl came with ground beef and fermented chili paste to finish.
I quickly took the bowl, tossed the noodles with my chopsticks, took a whiff, and went HAM.
Instantly, my forehead beaded sweat, and I felt like I had just jumped off a thirty-foot diving board into a pool of fresh chilis. The first thing that hit my palate wasn’t heat but the ice-cold freshness of red chilis. Common smoky dried chilis are like a big peppery glass of Bordeaux, but the chili-infused noodle sauce gave me that same feeling I had opening a bottle of Alain Graillot La Guiraude, expecting fruit but getting fresh salinity and cooling acid. For the non–wine drinker, think sour diesel cannabis. That cooling, almost minty flavor from a fresh bowl of diesel that wipes your mind like Windex and gives a ninja wings.
Clearly, there was heat, and my stomach was already rumbling, but from the waist up, I was refreshed. Usually, a sauce with soy, chilis, and garlic would be straight booty bass, but this shit came out crispy with horns like spottie ottie dopalicious angel.
“See, THIS CDC food, Eddie.”
“Damn, that ain’t no dan-dan mian.”
For my second bite, I added some Chinkiang vinegar to see how it changed the dish.
“You like better this way, Eddie?”
“Yeah, I do. It’s fresh with just soy sauce, but I like the extra acid with vinegar. It brings out the sugar in the fermented chilis.”
“I agree, you see! That’s why no one bother with dan-dan mian. So old and boring.”
I got it.
“There are many ways to…how you say, ‘finesse’ chilis, right?” said Rabbi.
“HANH, you been watching the show, huh?”
“Yeah, man, we knows Fresh Off the Boat.*6 It’s on the Travel Channel.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your show. It’s on the Travel Channel here. I just saw again last night.”
“Wait, they show Fresh Off the Boat on the Travel Channel in China?”
“May not be same as Travel Channel in America, but what we call Travel Channel, sometimes they show your Taiwan episode.”
“But we never sold the show to China.”
“Oh…I don’t know. Maybe you should calls them because it’s definitely on TV here.”
“That’s bootleg, man! I thought you supported the culture.”
“Don’t worry, I buy lunch,” said Rabbi.
—
The next morning I got up early. That Lao Mian Gwan had me thinking. I’d been making my mom’s beef noodle soup forever. It was the one dish I could never make my own. Everything about it was hers, and I was happy with that.
Sometimes I’d boiled peanuts in the stock to give it more body, other times soybeans, and sometimes I even whipped a little sesame paste into the bottom of each bowl just to freak it out, but I always went back to her recipe, and I wanted to make it for my friends in Chengdu.
“Yo! Evan, let’s get ready to make beef noodle soup.”
“I’m up, I’m up.” He waved at me from his bed.
“It’s ten A.M., we still need to get groceries, and it’s going to take three and a half hours to make the soup, so let’s get going.”
“People aren’t coming to eat until nine, we’ll be fine. Leave me alone.”
“Dude, we’ve cooked one time since we’ve been out here. Get your ass up.”
“Man, I’ve been sitting here working on the Baohaus 2011 tax return every morning, so stop bothering me.”
“Raf gave you almost a month off from working shifts to work on taxes, what else do you have to do?”
“A lot….”
“Both of you need to shut the fuck up ’cause I’m trying to sleep,” said Emery from under his covers. “You never should have had Evan do the taxes, Eddie, but, Evan, you’ve been dragging your ass not asking for help, so at this point you need to just finish it. It’s not that hard, you just don’t want to do it.”
“I’m going to Treat. Evan, when I get back you need to help me gather all the equipment to cook downstairs.”
I went to Treat for groceries alone. Things were bad with Evan. I could tell it wasn’t the work, though. He was sick of being the younger brother. He needed to be his own man, and even if I was right, I just couldn’t tell him nothin’ no more.
I started just grabbing items and throwing them in the cart, thinking about all the things I was going to say to Evan. If he wanted to leave, he should just be a grown-ass man and leave, pay for his own shit! Do his own thing, but he didn’t. He used Baohaus to support himself but didn’t always do the work and stayed crunchy all the time. How you gonna take the money, not give 100 percent, and screw your face at me all the time? Fuck outta here.
Within the hour, I was back at Hakka Homes boiling the first*7 off the oxtails, pig’s feet, and tendons when Evan walked in.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Toast the chilis and peppercorns, slice the ginger, cut the scallions. I’ll handle the rest.”
“Got it.”
“And chop the cilantro.”
“Anything else?”
“Cut the tomatoes, too.”
“Stop for a second and tell me exactly everything you need to do ’cause you’re just going to start throwing shit at me to do if you don’t think it through right now.”
“Man, fuck you. I give you all the easy shit to do. I’m still the one cooking it all, so who cares if I forgot to tell you to cut the mustard green, too. You see the shit. You’ve done this dish before. Just cut the shit you know I’m going to need.”
“Dude, I quit. I fucking quit!” Evan turned to storm out.
I almost threw the pot of boiling animal firsts at his ass.
“Gimme my money back for your plane ticket and fly your ass home yourself, then, you little bitch.”
“Take my money! Take everything! You already fucking wasted three years of my life following you around taking notes and doing all the shit work you don’t want to do.”
“What do you think you would have been doing? You’re the one that went to Blue Hill for a week and decided to stay at Baohaus! I told you to leave mad times if you wanted to! You walked in a partner, fool! It’s not my fault you didn’t get ahead of the business and set up the books. Now we have to go back and retrofit the whole thing.”
“You’re the boss! You should set the systems up!”
“Then why are you a
fifty/fifty partner? I’m the chef, you’re the operator, but you don’t operate shit! If I took your fifty percent and went on Craigslist I’d find somebody TODAY that would take your job.”
“So go do it, then!”
“You’re family! I’m not giving any part of the business to anyone but family. This is OUR SHIT.”
“I don’t want it!”
Just as Evan walked out, Emery walked in.
“Cot damn it, what the fuck is wrong with you two?” Emery asked.
“Evan quit!”
“Evan, get your ass back here!”
“I quit!” Evan yelled as he walked away, down the hallway.
I looked around the apartment with the smell of beef first boiling away. Ginger on the floor, cilantro scattered across the counter, and chili seeds stinging the skin under my fingernails. I didn’t want to think about Evan. I just cooked.
“Ed, you OK, man?”
“I’m fine.”
“What happened?”
“He quit.”
I toasted and tossed chilis in a wok.
“I know, but why’d you argue?”
“It doesn’t matter. He wanted to fucking quit. Evan never wanted to do the taxes. He left the shit for over a year because he figured someone would deal with it, and now that I’m making him do it, he wants to quit. He just wants to work with me when it’s easy, but as soon as it gets hard, he quits.”
“I don’t think that’s it, Ed.”
“What do you think it is, then, huh? Fuck him!”
“Look, Evan sometimes takes the easy way out. Yes, it’s easier to come work with you instead of doing his own shit, but that’s not why he works with you.”
“Yeah! He works with me because he knows that when shit hits the fan, I’ll pick it up! I always pick it up. What’s he gonna do when I’m not around?”
“Sometimes it’s you, but sometimes it’s him, too, man. When you needed to get out of the kitchen and write the book, who ran the shop?”
“He ran it like shit! I had to go in and tweak the minced pork one day because they cut corners browning the skin. There was also a whole week where they were butchering the chicken thighs wrong, giving away an extra half an ounce on every order!”