One of the biggest treats in China is a genuine Whopper from Burger King with your American friends! I recently learned there is one 10 minutes from my school, a discovery that would have made me very fat if I had found it earlier this year. The food taste EXACTLY like it does back home, which is shocking but wonderful. However importing all those ingredients makes the food relatively expensive. So, like the pizza-hut, they class the place up and market it as a fancy restaurant. There is a Starbucks style atmosphere with cozy booths and hip art painted on the walls. They advertise business space and encourage business meetings and interviews to be held in one of their private rooms. It’s an adventure every time we go.
One day when it was very crowded and the manager came up to me and my friends and had us sit down. Then he sent over one of the workers to take or order! Mind you, there is a line of Chinese people at the register, but we were somehow chosen for the VIP service! They brought our food out to us and everything, we were shocked. But you know we enjoyed the star treatment.
The last time we went the front section was all decorated in purple balloons. We all laughed at what it could possibly be, business dinner, wedding ceremony, holiday drama. All of which would not be impossible guesses. As we finish our dinner, we see the blocked off section start to fill up and a man walking around in a moose costume! None of our guesses where correct, we had to get a closer look.
It was a burger eating competition! “had I but known!” we all shouted. A man asked us if we wanted to play. I looked at the frightened faces of the current participants at the thought of competing against us. I declined but we all agreed that if we hadn't just eaten, we could have totally beaten the whole room! The challenge was one burger, 2 people, 1 hour! LAME! Ok maybe the burger had like 15 patties, it was in a little red basket and the 2 people were on either side... with plastic gloves. They do a count down over the ridiculously loud microphone!
(For some reason the volume setting on all Chinese equipment has 2 settings; inaudible and deafening. They always prefer deafening. I am taking cell phone ring tones, MP3 players with no head-phones, walking down the street with a megaphone shouting sale prices for their stolen goods spread out on a blanket. I am surprised anyone has any hearing left!)
But back to the Burger eating competition - They were eating like it was so hard after 2 bites! I really think they were doing the healthy eating count of 20 chews before you swallow your food. I don’t get it, the men at my school can shovel down their whole lunch in one bite. And I am sitting there 30 minutes later still trying to pick the bones out the fish so I can get a chopstick full of meat! But give them gloves and a burger and all of a sudden they act like there are at a country club Sunday brunch.
I couldn't watch the whole thing, we took our picture with a very happy moose, and left.
One day when it was very crowded and the manager came up to me and my friends and had us sit down. Then he sent over one of the workers to take or order! Mind you, there is a line of Chinese people at the register, but we were somehow chosen for the VIP service! They brought our food out to us and everything, we were shocked. But you know we enjoyed the star treatment.
The last time we went the front section was all decorated in purple balloons. We all laughed at what it could possibly be, business dinner, wedding ceremony, holiday drama. All of which would not be impossible guesses. As we finish our dinner, we see the blocked off section start to fill up and a man walking around in a moose costume! None of our guesses where correct, we had to get a closer look.
It was a burger eating competition! “had I but known!” we all shouted. A man asked us if we wanted to play. I looked at the frightened faces of the current participants at the thought of competing against us. I declined but we all agreed that if we hadn't just eaten, we could have totally beaten the whole room! The challenge was one burger, 2 people, 1 hour! LAME! Ok maybe the burger had like 15 patties, it was in a little red basket and the 2 people were on either side... with plastic gloves. They do a count down over the ridiculously loud microphone!
(For some reason the volume setting on all Chinese equipment has 2 settings; inaudible and deafening. They always prefer deafening. I am taking cell phone ring tones, MP3 players with no head-phones, walking down the street with a megaphone shouting sale prices for their stolen goods spread out on a blanket. I am surprised anyone has any hearing left!)
But back to the Burger eating competition - They were eating like it was so hard after 2 bites! I really think they were doing the healthy eating count of 20 chews before you swallow your food. I don’t get it, the men at my school can shovel down their whole lunch in one bite. And I am sitting there 30 minutes later still trying to pick the bones out the fish so I can get a chopstick full of meat! But give them gloves and a burger and all of a sudden they act like there are at a country club Sunday brunch.
I couldn't watch the whole thing, we took our picture with a very happy moose, and left.
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