Of Chinese and Fortunes

When a Manileňa is hungry, she dials Jollibee. When a New Yorker is hungry, she calls the nearest Chinese. Nothing beats Chickenjoy (still), but General Tso’s exquisite (and cheap) creation is a strong no. 2!

Chinese restaurants are a poor-student-living-in-Manhattan's solution/savior to getting cheap, warm, filling and fast rice meals. It's most accessible and the closest a NY meal can get to home-cooked Filipino food = rice + ulam. It's just like Starbucks, there's one in every corner!

A New Yorker is lucky if her apartment is located nearby good ones in the likes of Jimmy Sung’s or 69 Chinese Food. But, there are other well-kept secrets in every corner of Manhattan. Like in Midtown, for example. Around my apartment location is Mee Noodle Shop, Hop Won Noodle, Shi Lee and Sichuan Palace.

Reading Chinese menus amuses me! They make me smile during a very low morning.

“We have five kinds of noodle” or "Spicy Scallops with hot pepper sauce and peanut"

(That still cracks me up)

It wouldn’t really matter at the end of the day, because the five kinds of noodle they have are their best-sellers – and they are tasty, nonetheless.

What I like about ordering Chinese, apart from the menu hilarity and getting my chock-full of MSG, is getting little fortune cookies! (I’m a sucker for astrology, fortune-telling, palm reading, and other time-and-money-wasted foretelling.)

I know, I know. Life is what I make it. But it doesn’t really hurt reading and picking on how hilarious and ridiculous my future can be. (See Justification here: there is a huge gap between reading and believing. I do this for fun.)

I’ve ordered more than a dozen Chinese in my last 2 months here in New York, and too bad, I wasn’t able to keep all the little fortunes that my little cookies foretold of me. But I’ll enlist some weird and interesting ones here:

1.Always accept yourself the way you are.
2.There is gradual improvement. Feelings are sweet and tender.
3. You have a potential urge and ability for accomplishment.
4. A heavy burden is lifted with a phone message or letter.
5. A modest man never talks to himself.
6. Think of mother’s exhortations more.
7. All the effort you are making will ultimately pay off.

And my most favorite:

8. You are who you are. (Haha!)