Monthly Lunch with My English Students -- January 2011

Rolly wrote:Jan 2011 We went to a sushi place in Torreón. Nery and I had gone there two weeks ago for his birthday and to check out the place. Excellent -- miso soup, giant seafood salad and several sushis.



Unfortunately, today's visit was not quite as good. The miso soup was a little messed up with too much scallion tops. The salad was wonderful like last time. But the sushi turned out to be a bit disappointing because the waiter misunderstood what we wanted. Instead of five pieces of traditional sushi for each of us, we each got five sushi rolls -- much too much rice! We had enough left overs to take home.

Since these lunches are for expanding the guys' food knowledge as well as English practice, they learned some new words today -- tofu, soy, scallion, roe, take home box and doggy bag. They also got introduced to chop sticks with varying success. Alex had a Sapporo beer which gave us a chance to talk about Japanese rice beers and Sake. Alex was so impressed with the unique Sapporo can that he took it home as a souvenir.

Rolly, you mentioned doggy bag. That reminded me of something my Mexican wife told me a long time ago, that you should never ask for a doggy bag or the restauranteurs will think you didn't like the meat. Of course, if the people that run the restaurant know you, they may not be offended, but if they don't know you, it is better to never ask for a doggy bag.

We always ask for a take home box now, even then, we are sometimes asked if we didn't like the meat, and what was wrong with it? The wait staff at the places where we usually dine out are always concerned that we are happy with their food.

When they are satisfied that the meat is to be eaten by us later, they often put little dabs of salad and chiles in the box for us. Of course I need to pick them out before I serve the meat to our two dog kids.

Our dogs both know the English word treat. They are always a little unhappy when we are going out in the evening, they don't want to be alone for a few hours, until I tell them “I will bring you a treat.” Then they settle down because they know they are going to get some good human food later.

Rex



We'll do Chinese next month