川 - Chuan1 - River

四川 - Si4 Chuan1 - Four Rivers — Sichuan (Szechuan) province

We went to another stupid street fair in New York today, it was a complete bust. Even though it was in Flushing, where Chinese, Korean, Middle Eastern, Indian and Jewish culture and food all swirl together it sill had only the same old stuff as every other street fair. But the trip wasn’t a complete waste: we had some really good 川菜 - Chuan1 Cai4 - Sichuan Food. It was at a place called Szechuan Dynasty, or in Chinese, 蜀霸川菜 - Shu3 Ba4 Chuan1 Cai4 - Shu Tyrant Sichuan Food! (Shu3 is one of the famous Three Kingdoms, and also seems to be another word for “Sichuan”.) You’ve probably had Sichuan food, even if you don’t know it. Like your Kung Pao spicy? That’s Sichuan food.

Jenny’s grandfather was from Sichuan, I think it’s through him that she got her high tolerance of 辣 food. He used to feed Jenny and her sisters spicy duck tongue as a treat. I’m told he also used to eat whole dried roasted chili peppers (Yowza!) as a nice snack. Jenny’s not quite at that level, but she’s up there. I’m another few levels down from her, but pretty good for a 外國人 - Wai4 Guo2 Ren2 - Outside Country Person — Foreigner.

That reminds me of this one time at a Chinese restaurant I ordered some Sichuan dish and the waitress asked me “How would you like that? Spicy? Mild?” I said “Spicy.” She said “Are you sure? We make it really spicy.” I said “Yeah, I’m sure.” She said “Maybe I’ll just bring you mild.” I said “No, spicy please.” She still didn’t seem to believe me. I said that I’ve had a lot of spicy food before, and I know what I’m doing, so please, spicy. She kind of looked at me funny, but finally said “OK, spicy.” The food came, and I ate it… it wasn’t spicy at all! Huh? They call this spicy? Later the waitress came back and asked how it was. I told her the food was good, but was hardly spicy. She said “I told the cook to make it mild. I didn’t think you cold take it.”