John was plastered and didn't want to eat, so I took Kandy
to a local favorite, Becky's, which serves standard Chinese-
American fare of the old school. She was greeted like an old
friend by the staff, so had definitely been down this road
before. To drink we had tea - one lonely bag's worth in a
big pot of water; surprisingly, this ended up pretty
flavorful and with a grain note that reminded me of the
stuff from the Chinatowns of my childhood.

Bean curd with roast pork is one of my all-time favorite
dishes, with nice fatty char siu and smooth tofu. Here, the
meat is lean and the bean curd fried and a little on the
greasy side. Nonetheless, the flavors were similar enough
to satisfy my infantile urges.

Ten ingredient pan fried noodles was actually deep fried
noodles covered with snow peas, carrots, mushrooms, bok
choy, shrimp, pork, beef, and chicken. I guess that's only
8. The thin wheat noodles, that makes 9, and maybe there
was the water chestnut here or there, but I tend to not
notice those. The food was decent and there was a lot of
it. Also a lot of MSG, maybe that was the 10th ingredient.
This was Kandy's choice.

A standard eggplant with garlic sauce, a little heavy on
the oil and a little light on the sugar and vinegar, was
satisfying enough and of course my choice.

Kandy loves kung pao chicken, and this was an okay version,
though not spicy at all. Lots of chicken, not too much in
the way of peanuts and celery, not much else, in a brown
soy-based sauce with undetectable heat.

There was a lot of food, and we brought back over 2 lb
back to John, who proceeded not to eat it, though he
professed some gratitude.

-

John has an irregular coffee klatsch with other old
hippies and similar misfits, over at Rising Loafer, a
bakery, coffee, and breakfast house in upper-middle class
Lafayette, between Orinda and Walnut Creek geographically
and statuswise - the median family income is about 150K.
Prices are high, but as he supplies the proprietress with
rocoto chiles and possibly other things from the garden,
John gets his coffee and pastries for free. We showed up
a little late, so I met only Ben and Gerd, both computer
people with a checkered past, though perhaps not so much
as John's own (Gerd used to write sensationalist articles
for Der Spiegel). I ordered the Mediterranean crepe, with
Cheddar, tomatoes, cooked onions, and avocado, quintessential
California tree-hugger fare - what makes it anything close to
Mediterranean is that the cook, the Peruvian owner's husband,
is Lebanese. I had a hazelnut Italian soda, as I was very
thirsty; it went down in seconds, so the lady gave me a
second for free. The food was pretty decent - one of the
San Fran newspapers reported that Rising Loafer makes the
best crepe in town; I wouldn't go that far, as the pancake
itself was on the resilient side (perhaps gluten free), but
it was big and tasty and for this part of the world good
value for the money. Whatever syrup was used in the soda
was exceedingly strong, and though there was very little
in the drink, the flavor was in my mouth for hours after.
John paid my bill.
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