There is a Datong noodle restaurant on Struggle Road, and I often take my wife and children there to eat (I often go there to eat).
In recent years, I've been eating and drinking a lot outside, which is really unusual. I have almost eaten all the delicious food in the world. When I returned home drunk, I saw the adults and children quietly eating green vegetables and radishes at home, their noses were sour and guilty. I feel like I'm not a man, and I'm also very immature.
At first, I took my wife and children to a Taiwanese "Taichung Steakhouse". It's a buffet-style restaurant, so I think it's better to eat out for the first time. First, the price is fixed, forty-eight yuan per person. It's not expensive. Second, wives and children can freely choose what they like to eat according to their own preferences.
Although the family has lived together for many years, you should not be stubborn that you know very well what each of them likes to eat. When you get to the restaurant, you take the recipe, order this and that, and occasionally ask them in a pretentious (and a bit condescending) way, what else do you like to eat? They all look at you silently, don't say anything, and then, look around the restaurant again to see if anyone is paying attention here. Or they say, just order it, don't be too expensive. They are also self-respecting people, and it is impossible for them to tell you all the dreams and desires in their hearts, and even romantic words. Your family won't be a place where idiots gather. Whether they are in a big social family or their own small family, they live a very measured life.
Therefore, I chose the buffet because there are many varieties of buffet, such as mutton, beef, pork, all kinds of vegetables, all kinds of stir-fried vegetables, all kinds of sweets, and all kinds of staple foods. You will find that many of the foods that your wife and children choose back are unexpected by you. And your experience in the selection and well-meaning advice will have no effect on them at all.
They go their own way when it comes to their food choices. It makes you feel inferior and at a loss, and even feels a sense of potential adversariality between each other.
The first time I led my family to eat at a restaurant, it was a success in any case, or it was basically successful. The only thing you feel unsatisfied, who feels a little bit regretful, is yourself. But you can't say. Say something else along the way, and make some blunt gestures. You seem very polite, very strange, and they look at you with that look as they walk.
Later, the women of the family objected to going to the Taichung steakhouse, thinking that it was expensive. It's too expensive, especially for drinks, which are not big for a single cup, and the waiter forcibly mixes so many ice cubes. Who is stupid? If you don't go, you really don't go! So, I chose Datong Noodle Restaurant on the road of struggle.
Datong noodle restaurant, is a group of Shanxi people opened, its Shanxi characteristics are natural, there are knife noodles, fish, etc., vinegar is authentic Shanxi old vinegar, bad mouth. Diners won't feel like they're going to lose their weight when they eat it. And it's cheap. A family of four, plus a pot of chrysanthemum tea, a cup of draft beer, and a small package of exquisite napkins, fifty or sixty yuan came down.
On the way back, the woman said that it was okay to ask for money for tea, and rock sugar was put in it, but the small packet of napkins should not be asked for money.
I said, yes.
When I was younger, I loved to eat Shanxi knife-cut noodles. At that time, I lived in a single dormitory. is a rebel in the family and does not want to go home. After work, he often wanders aimlessly on the street alone. I remember that on the corner of Badao Street, there is a small Shanxi noodle shop. Very good, not a big shop, three or four tables with chopstick holders on the table. But it's quite distinctive. A large pot of boiling water, the master's skillful and thrilling noodle cutting technique, clattering, shaving thin and neat. It's breathtaking.
Have a bowl!
Add old vinegar, minced garlic, add a little soy sauce, and a forehead of hot sweat, young people are addicted to eating. I often go to eat. And it's not expensive. Today's young people don't get addicted to it. They love to eat hamburgers. I've eaten with them many times. I am a very generous Northeasterner, but every time I feel expensive!
Soon, this Shanxi noodle shop turned yellow. Changed to selling potstickers and some platters. Why is it yellow? I didn't ask when I ate the potstickers. It's not that I don't want to ask, it's the cowardice of my personality. You can't see this on the surface.
Later, when I drove a big truck to Tianjin, I was wandering around the city with a few workers on the same road, and suddenly saw knife-cut noodles on a back street. A rickshaw worker sat on his cart, holding a large bowl of knife-cut noodles and eating awe-inspiringly. Behind him was the small restaurant that specialized in knife-cut noodles.
I suggest a few co-workers eat knife-cut noodles. They were all against it. Why do you eat this stuff in a big restaurant? If you don't eat it, you are willing to eat it alone.
I decided to eat alone. Just eat a bowl. A few of them waited. Very incomprehensible. A worker said, don't say anything, it's just greedy. I held the bowl and ate with a serious expression.
It's so comfortable. It's very fulfilling, full of family-like enjoyment.
Finally, I paid the money and walked to the co-workers.
Finished eating, they asked?
I said I'm done.
Let's go.
I said, let's go.
One of them asked me, are you from Shanxi?
I said, no.
Along the way, everyone didn't speak for a long time. Later it was said. Everything is back to normal.
In recent years, because of my profession, I often go to Beijing. When I arrived in Beijing, I never had the opportunity to go to the popular restaurant on the corner of Dongdan alone and eat fast-food-style knife-cut noodles for three yuan a bowl.
It's a pity.
Once, before getting on the plane back to the Northeast, Lao Qiu, a buddy from the Northeast who made a living in Beijing, asked me to rub it off. Because they are all from my hometown, I proposed to eat a bowl of knife-cut noodles.
Lao Qiu said, "Isn't that?" What's it called? Big brother is here, why can't you just eat a bowl of knife-cut noodles.
Later, he added in Beijing dialect, how can that be done?
I said seriously, I don't eat anything, it's knife noodles. I haven't eaten it in Beijing several times. If you want to invite me, I'll treat me to this.
Lao Qiu said, this is too bad, our buddies can't even afford a meal. Isn't it?
I said, yes. I understand your situation. However, I eat knife-cut noodles. The point is that I want to eat.
Lao Qiu said, okay, okay, okay. Let me think, where to eat knife-cut noodles?
I said, Dongdan.
Lao Qiu said, no, what's too much. If you want to eat, you have to find a decent place.
Lao Qiu stood on the street and thought for a long time, and suddenly remembered that the top floor of a large shopping mall was a place that sold all kinds of meals, with knife-cut noodles. He remembered in a trance.
So, he drove me to eat in his car.
He said while driving, this is not, eat knives and cut noodles. Brother, can you discuss it again, let's eat something of the grade. We have a car, convenient.
I said, just cut the noodles with a knife!
He said, "Okay, well, life and death are knife faces." I get it.
The two of them finally ate knife-cut noodles on the top floor of the big mall. Eight pieces for one bowl, two bowls for sixteen pieces.
I ate well. Very moisturizing and happy. A lot of things were said.
After eating, Lao Qiu took me to the merchandise counter on the next floor and bought a set of gaiwan tea bowls (he knew I liked tea). Then he bought a small handicraft - he thought that eight yuan for a bowl of knife-cut noodles to entertain his buddies, not like that, buy these, as a little compensation.
I didn't say anything, I stuffed the tea bowls and crafts into my bag.
When he got on the plane, Lao Qiu said, it seems that you really like to eat knife-cut noodles.
Last month, I took my youngest daughter to the Datong Noodle Restaurant on Struggle Road to eat knife-cut noodles. There weren't many guests at that time. With little effort, a mother and daughter came in. The daughter is fourteen or fifteen years old. They chose a small table and sat down. All they needed was a bowl of knife-cut noodles. The daughter was eating, talking. The mother sat across from her, quietly watching.
I slowly shed tears.
I can't tell what it is, I have a complicated heart.