Dinner With Vida
Lotus Garden
Last week Vida and I had a reunion with some of my old work friends- J., S.P. and A.K. Past work drama had gotten the best of our friendship for over a year and it seemed like a good time to mend fences. I miss having my job feel like a second family—even when we had a hard time liking each other we tried to stay allied. It was great to feel that elements of that connection were still there. I really only felt that so much time had passed when I saw Vida through their eyes. She was still a baby when we had gotten together last.
We went to Lotus Garden on Mission near Cortland for Vietnamese food. As usual, I was persuaded to eat there by a newspaper clipping in the window. Someone could make a fortune selling fake reviews. We ordered Vietnamese beers from a quirky waiter who tried in vain to get Vida to warm up to his strange demeanor. She was instantly drawn to the fish tank in the back that contained a collection of crabs. S.P and Vida hit it off immediately and spent quite a bit of the meal going back and forth to the tank and returning with facts you didn’t really want to know about the crabs. One crab was missing a leg, another was peeing on a companion—others were busy with other functions. Not exactly dinner conversation but exactly what Vida would consider amusing enough to let us eat in relative peace.
We ordered fresh and fried spring rolls that were edible but not exceptional. An unusual squid salad made with chopped squid and cabbage rounded out the appetizers. We ordered a sea bass special with soy sauce. The fish wasn’t of the highest quality but it was prepared well. A coconut curry eggplant dish and fried rice rounded out the meal. Vida was interested in the spring wells and loved the fried rice. She went around the table between bites and visited with everyone. It wasn’t likely that she actually remembered everyone but somewhere in her consciousness there seemed to be some memory of who these people were—or maybe it was just because they knew so much about her. Somehow the conversation turned to doctorate degrees and Vida started calling S, “Dr. P”. We couldn’t stop laughing at her cleverness and natural sense of humor. I asked her to sing her current favorite song from “My Fair Lady” and she busted out with “Just you wait ‘enry ‘iggins, just you wait. You’ll be sorry but it will be to late” and a little crescendo of “ha ha ha” at the end. I suppose I shouldn’t be so obviously amused at everything that comes out of Vida’s mouth but I can’t help it.
After some fried bananas and ice cream Vida took her party to the street. As she ran down Mission Street she stumbled and kind of rolled on the concrete. I saw the entire thing and was thinking about how well she took the fall and how there wasn’t going to be much in the way of scrapped knees when she started to scream and raised a bloody palm. When she braced her fall she landed on a piece of glass that made a nice gash in her palm. There was an amazing amount of blood. S.P. came to the rescue with some Kleenex—I’m not one of those girls that’s ever prepared. We quickly made sure that there was no glass still in her hand and that she didn’t need stitches. It was a strange way to end the evening. The bleeding slowed quickly and I hustled Vida in the car, her hand still covered in blood. She recovered from the trauma fairly quickly and I was relieved that it wasn’t more serious.
Restaurant Total:139
Bursa
Working off a recommendation Vida and I went to West Portal to visit the Middle Eastern restaurant Bursa. As I drove around looking for parking I reminisced about our last visit to the area when Vida was about 2 and I took her to her first movie in a theatre. She was technically too young but we went to the second Harry Potter movie. She had seen the first and was completely fascinated. She wasn’t scared by it at all except for the part where the flying keys hit the door. For weeks she talked about how the keys “hit the door” and had this little hand motion to go with it. We had popcorn, soda and a hotdog and she was in heaven. She was potty training so she wasn’t wearing a diaper and I was a little nervous. A little over an hour into the movie she crawled into my lap and I could sense her getting close to falling asleep. We quickly went to the bathroom and she then slept comfortably through the rest of the film. She didn’t remember a thing about the experience when I asked her.
I was expecting an informal restaurant so when we got to Bursa and saw servers in white shirts and tablecloths I felt somewhat dirty and underdressed. I saw a mezze plate that looked great but I didn’t think Vida would be very excited about it. I ordered what they described as phyllo pastry with spinach and cheese and an eggplant salad. The pastry was hardly crisp and flaky like phyllo usually is. It had more of a bread dough. There was cheese but no spinach to speak of. Vida took one bite and spit it out. It tasted o.k., but it wasn’t what I expected. The eggplant appetizer was described as eggplant salad with tomato. I expected fresh tomato but it was instead pureed with tomato and subsequently a nauseating color. It had a good but not exceptional flavor. The bread they served was interesting. It wasn’t like pita but soft, chewy and sprinkled with sesame seeds. It definitely was the high point of our appetizer course. I am really tired of ordering food that Vida won’t eat so I ordered a chicken shish kabob dinner. It came with a chopped salad that reminded me of Grandma Bona’s Friday night salad. A timbale of tasty rice was served with it. Vida enjoyed the chicken but over all I felt the food to be a bit anemic—Middle Eastern food for WASP’s. I would like to go back and try the mezze plate and maybe the shwarma. There was nothing really wrong with the food. It could be that I just didn’t order their best dishes. But the atmosphere was slightly pretentious and I felt like they were trying to move us out quickly.
At the end of the meal Vida started climbing on the tall chair used by the host. They were not amused. I can take a hint.
Restaurant Total: 138
Sushi Zone Mokie's
Vida has been taking Mexican folk dancing lessons at her school since the beginning of the school year. This was her second year of dance. Last year when I went to visit the class seemed to consist mostly of trying to get the kids to stand in a circle and not cry or run around. When Vida saw me she refused to participate in any of the exercises and the teacher politely asked me not to return. When I went to visit this year they had progressed to learning a few steps and Vida reluctantly danced with me. The favorite part of the class for most of the kids seemed to be getting their hands stamped. I could only be sure she attended the class when I saw the little black rainbows, suns or animals on the back of her hand. Most of the time when I asked her if she had dance class on Thursdays she said no.
Yesterday was their official end of the school year performance. They were divided into age groups. When Vida’s group came out in the girls were wearing colorful long skirts and white cotton peasant blouses and the boys had dress shirts and ties. When Vida came out it was clear that she didn’t want to be there. She was of course wearing an orange skirt with her flowered shirt. Her hair was pulled back and pinned into a bun with a flowered comb off to the side. She looked amazing as she stood there and, mad as hell. She withstood the performance as her friend G danced enthusiastically next to her with her partner. Her friend J was not a happy boy either and stood off to the opposite side with his green dress shirt tucked into a pair of gray sweat pants. Vida stood as the music played and stared at Ra Ra and I with her hand up to her mouth looking as if she was going to flee. She made it through the song and when I went to get her as she burst into tears. She talked about it a little bit—about how she was “dancing with L, but that they weren’t dancing” and that when she saw Ra Ra and I she “couldn’t smile because she felt shy”.
The whole experience had traumatized her so much that she didn’t know what to do. I got her out of her outfit and ready to go but she said she wanted to stay at school. She couldn’t stop crying and being upset so we decided a change of scenery might shake her out of it and left to go to dinner.
Vida said she wanted sushi even though we had been to Sushi Zone with A the night before. Sushi Zone was fantastic. I was completely enamored of their spicy tuna roll and a spicy scallop roll—maybe because mayonnaise was involved and definitely because they both had shiso leaf. We had to wait over 30 minutes for a table and I was afraid the evening would be a bust before it got started but Vida hung in there. She ate three avocado rolls—or two rolls and most of a third. One of the rolls was made with wasabi and like wasabi does, it didn’t hit her until she was into her second or third piece that promptly came out of her mouth onto the plate. We were seated at the sushi bar and she amused and impressed the sushi chef with her enthusiasm. There were some wind up toys near by which also bought us some time.
When Ra Ra and I brought up the possibility of sushi Vida instantly said that she wanted to go to the “place with the boats”. We revisited Warakabune and she had a fabulous time grabbing plates out of the water. Some of her choices were questionable such as a tobiko nigiri but she gave it an impressive try. I had to eat all the rejects.
A few weeks ago another mildly tragic afternoon segued into sushi. A and I were going up to Bernal Heights to a restaurant opening. We stopped before to play basketball at a playground. Vida got hit with a ball as it came down from the hoop and it sent her flying. She scraped her hands and her knees as she fell. We left the basketball court and went to the restaurant opening. Vida was consoled with a fruity punch but wasn’t much interested in the food. We ended up across the street at Mokie’s. I had heard so much about how good Mokie’s was that it wasn’t difficult to be disappointed. I wasn’t impressed with their roll combinations. But, they did have bowls satisfying bowls of rice with sesame seeds or coconut as condiments and good miso soup.
Restaurant Total: 137
