Today’s Entree

Today’s Entree

It’s a Chinese restaurant. The owner is from Korea. The waitress wears running shoes, black spandex ski pants, a frilly white blouse with a black bow tie. She is Mexican and speaks broken English. The couple in the booth have ordered the Peking Palace Sunday-night Special, Egg Foo Yung. For appetizers, they have ordered martinis. The owner goes behind the bar, toward the back of the restaurant, and adjusts the sound on the color television mounted high in the corner of the room. From the fridge, he extracts a pair of chilled glasses; he pours into these a previously-mixed clear liquid, drops a pitted olive into these, and spears each one with a toothpick. The waitress is signaled to serve the cocktails. Sipping their drink, the couple talks little. His face is baggy, like hers, and he has dark pouches under each eye. Over the front of her blouse hangs a maroon napkin, which she has tucked in under her collar.

He chews and swallows the olive, and begins to choke, making a great effort to appear not to be choking. “Drink some water,” she says. He manages to gasp, “I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you to tell me what to do!” The Egg Foo Yung arrives. It is basically an omelet containing a few tired bean sprouts; it appears to have been deep-fried. It has been smothered in a stiff gravy which seems to have been designed to match the color of the omelet. Sprinkled atop this are a few green peas and

diced carrots, who lived the greater part of their life in a can or a freezer.

When the waitress brings two small bowls of white rice, the omelet is already about to become history. “How is it?” she asks.

“Delicious!” the man booms. Looking at his wife, he says, “How come you can’t cook like this?” She is looking past him, watching television as she eats. A commercial exhibits a happy, energetic Oriental family who are gathered around a big table. They are delightedly eating a variety of glistening Chinese foods, while they jointly praise the wise old Chinese woman who proudly watches from the kitchen door. The camera closes in on her smiling face, and then zeroes in on the empty Chung King cans and packages on the kitchen counter behind her. Alas, “life” is an empty façade.