When I was still a kid, an art school student, I had a date with a wonderful girl (who may read this blog so I will not give away any secrets) and we went to a party at one of our friends houses. I think we went somewhere else first, because I remember arriving late for some reason (not a good one), and the food had already been ordered and picked up. So when we arrived it was there.Dave Jacobs, later the creator of “Dallas” and “Knot’s Landing” was the one responsible for the food, and had ordered Chinese food. It came in those wonderful little white cardboard containers it always came in before God invented Styrofoam, and it was good. I took a big plate full, as did my date, but not as much as me of course. Since I had known her for many years and we were just friends unfortunately (there is a theme here, but not meaningfully) I was not trying to impress her with my mannerly behavior.
I assume, in hindsight, that I was just hungry and in a hurry to eat and I just put too much food too quickly in my mouth and swallowed. The result was not so bad, but I lodged a noodle, the hard kind often served with soup, in my throat sideways!
The trick here was not to die, not to mess up my sport coat or pants (we were art students but always well dressed in the early 60’s) and to be able to find a way to express my discomfort as well as express the damn thing out of my throat where it was tearing new openings in my windpipe!
I thought as I chocked and fought against total collapse of me or my wind pipe. What could I do to save me? I came up with the ingenious solution.
We were alone in the kitchen, and no one was watching. I turned on the hot water tap, grabbed a glass and began to drink hot water, knowing that eventually the noodle would melt, and it did!
After calming down, straightening myself up so that I looked good, I finished dinner.
So thanks to Dave Jacobs and the Nan Kin Restaurant (long since gone and discussed in this blog a year or so ago), I enjoyed my dinner and my date.
OK, she married several more guys since then and I married several different women, but she is still, in my mind, the date I almost died on! I will send her this story as well, because she deserves to hear it all!
The original Nan Kin article:
When I was a kid I used to go to the neighborhood Chinese Restaurant, Nan Kin. It was across the street from the bowling alley in our Forest Park neighborhood, and was always a wondrous place, full of great and exotic food.
Now, granted, this was in the days before we ever heard of Szechwan cooking or Sushi or Vietnamese cuisine.
They had dishes with pork and shrimp and lobster, these were things that little Jewish boys only heard about, because they wouldn’t have been seen in our house. It’s not like we were kosher, it’s really just that these foods were foreign to us at the time.
My father would not eat Chinese food, so this became a special place for my mother and I to eat lunch on special Saturdays or Sundays. We would get Chow Mein and Fried Rice and all those exotic Cantonese dishes.
As a teenager, I returned there with friends. My friend Ted Fisher and I would go there often very late at night and get combination platters, a great bargain. The pork chow mien and fried rice with an egg roll and soup was about $1.10 and the shrimp egg foo young and fried rice and an egg roll with soup was about $1.25. These came with dessert of course, peppermint ice cream!
I know this place closed many years ago, as well we moved on to the Lotus Inn when we were mobile, a more upscale (slightly) place a mile or so uptown. When I was older, we were turned away from the Cantonese places by the more exotic ones, but my memories of sitting there with warm china containers with chrome lids full of wonderful food and pots of tea still remains.
Much like my story about the Pimlico Hotel, I have a Nan Kin story. No, I didn’t steal from these lovely people, but an opportunity came up a few years ago on eBay to acquire four tea cups from the restaurant.
I hold the cups in my hand and it takes me back to a kinder, gentler time……
Now, granted, this was in the days before we ever heard of Szechwan cooking or Sushi or Vietnamese cuisine.
They had dishes with pork and shrimp and lobster, these were things that little Jewish boys only heard about, because they wouldn’t have been seen in our house. It’s not like we were kosher, it’s really just that these foods were foreign to us at the time.
My father would not eat Chinese food, so this became a special place for my mother and I to eat lunch on special Saturdays or Sundays. We would get Chow Mein and Fried Rice and all those exotic Cantonese dishes.
As a teenager, I returned there with friends. My friend Ted Fisher and I would go there often very late at night and get combination platters, a great bargain. The pork chow mien and fried rice with an egg roll and soup was about $1.10 and the shrimp egg foo young and fried rice and an egg roll with soup was about $1.25. These came with dessert of course, peppermint ice cream!
I know this place closed many years ago, as well we moved on to the Lotus Inn when we were mobile, a more upscale (slightly) place a mile or so uptown. When I was older, we were turned away from the Cantonese places by the more exotic ones, but my memories of sitting there with warm china containers with chrome lids full of wonderful food and pots of tea still remains.
Much like my story about the Pimlico Hotel, I have a Nan Kin story. No, I didn’t steal from these lovely people, but an opportunity came up a few years ago on eBay to acquire four tea cups from the restaurant.
I hold the cups in my hand and it takes me back to a kinder, gentler time……
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