Chen Sifu crossed the intersection, between the supermarket and the house-turned-dormitory where local restaurant owners rented rooms, to house help they hired from The City. The October air was cold. The wind cut. Chen zipped his jacket up to his chin, and burrowed his neck deep into the thin cotton. He hustled towards the supermarket. [...]
“It looks easy,” Frank told me as he moved the circular, steel mesh strainer through the vegetable oil, scooping out the tempura flakes clumped together like bunches of oats. “But tempura takes some of the greatest skill in Japanese cooking.”
He switched to the rectangular strainer – a squirrel-sized hockey stick, with a steel mesh blade [...]
“When Old Man cook, it more tasty, right?” Danny glanced at me. We sat at the bar. He was hunched over his dinner: white rice, beef cooked in oyster sauce and Chinese cabbage.
I took another bite. I was sympathetic to Chen Sifu’s cooking, since I’d been told my own cooking was pretty bland. But Danny [...]
