Ordering food in the middle of nowhere

This post was first published on the excellent blog of La Cordée stores.

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At home, the content of restaurant menus is generally much more refined than that of the roadside bouis-bouis in which I stop. In fact, when traveling, it's not uncommon for the restaurant to be so small that I'm not even sure it's a restaurant. I have already sat down on one of the few chairs placed at a lady's house before I found out that she was cooking for her family…

I can see you frowning already. "Can't you recognize a restaurant ?! ".

Duck heads in China. A "real" Chinese buffet!

Well, it's not that easy! Some Southeast Asian countries are so poor that many houses cover their walls with old advertising posters. Most often cell company signs, but sometimes food posters as well. This allows them to save the cost of purchasing a real exterior covering.

Restaurants in the middle of country roads are also usually very small operations. Often, only one lady cooks in her house. The best clue to know that I am in the presence of a restaurant is that there are a few chairs and two or three tables placed outside.

With a few gestures, I therefore make sure that I can sit down and eat. I have also had to adapt my sign language over the countries. Whereas, from Europe to Central Asia, I pretended to bring a fork to my mouth, in East Asia, I rather mimic eating with my fingers or chopsticks.

In the kitchen of a restaurant in rural China.

Once I am seated and certain that I am in a restaurant, I can order. I still have to be able to do it. Fortunately, my choice is made easier by the fact that in the majority of these places the options are limited to less than three courses.

My father joined me at the beginning of 2017 to ride for a month in Vietnam. On our first day on the road, I chose one of these typical little places. My father and I sat on red plastic chairs. A lady approached us, smiling. “Perfect !, I said to myself, we are in a restaurant. I pointed at my dad, then at me, and gave him a two-nod with my fingers. All in silence.

- What did you order? my father asked me.

- No idea, but I ordered two.

My system

In most countries speaking the local language is not even a prerequisite. People quickly understand my signs and that I am happy to eat any of their meals.

But not in China.

Oh no! In China, everything is different.

In China, they want a clear answer on what I want to eat. First, the menu is more detailed and I quickly gave up the idea of ​​trying to explain that I have no food preferences. And since sign language is different from ours, nothing works.

So I had to adopt a special three-step system. I stop at the first step which works:

1. Point to another customer's dish, if there is another customer.

2. Point to a line at random on a menu written in Chinese, when there is a menu, and wait for the surprise.

3. Head to the kitchen. Point to a cauldron or food at random. Answer yes to the following question. Hope the question wasn't if I wanted the spicy dish. Wait for the surprise. Ask for more water to eat the spicy dish.

Then all I have to do is pay. At this point, I usually open the calculator on my phone. My nice restaurateur can easily tell me the price. The numbers being, to my delight, a universal alphabet.

Bon appétit!

In the land of sushi

I am writing all of this from Japan, my last Asian country, before continuing my journey to South America. And I take this opportunity to take a break from my funny techniques. We find, in the land of the rising sun, very good sushi in all convenience stores in the country, that is to say about every 300 meters!

Taku, cook and owner of a very small restaurant in Kobe, Japan, who serves me, with a smile, the tongue of a horse.

And, in this region where cooking is an art as much as an ancestral science, I often allow myself to be charmed by the eyes and the taste buds by sitting down in front of the artist cook, at the bar of a small restaurant. There, fish and often raw meats are finely cut. "What is this meat?" I ask, my mouth full, with the help of Google Translate. "Raw horse tongue." »It just goes to show that each country brings its share of adventures and experiences.

Bon appétit!