Our family loves to eat at Wok: Casa Nuestra, an Aisan restaurant in Granada. One night after coming home from a baptism, we were all starving and I suggested that we eat there. Emma and Aidan were more than a little skeptical. I think Emma even shouted, "NO, I don't want to eat at an Asian restaurant." I think she was remembering the time we tried to make her eat some really greasy pork in Chinatown and she threw up at the table. Good times.
Anyway, this restaurant seriously has something for everyone. There is a cold food buffet with fruit, vegetables, octopus salad, sushi (only two kinds), pickles, olives, jamon serrano, cheese, flan, cake, mussels, oysters, and snails. The hot food bar is a deep fried dream: french fries, fried rolls (sweet and closely resembling scones), BBQed pork, sweet and sour pork, chow mein, fried rice, egg rolls, wontons, calamari, fried chicken, and fried pork. There is also a grill with raw meat, seafood, and vegetables that you can put on a plate and hand over to a chef to cook for you. You can choose from salmon steaks, some kind of white fish filets, a whole fish, crab legs, squid (with eyes), shrimp, crayfish, clams, barnacle looking shellfish, calamari, chicken, steak, pork chops, chilies, onions, zucchini, and mushrooms. I surely left some stuff out, but seriously it is an Asian Sizzler (Steak, Seafood . . . .Sizzler). When we went with the kids, they mostly wanted stuff from the deep fried buffet. I don't blame them, the fried sweet rolls are YUMMY! Ian also ate a bunch of sushi. Collin, Aidan and I tried octopus. It really does have the texture of a rubber band.
I dared myself to eat a snail. The way they get them out here it by forming a suction with your lips around the opening of the shells and sucking them out. I tried several times, but my lips (perhaps with a foreboding premonition of the flavor to come) refused to form a suction. I decided to give up. Aidan really wanted me to eat it so he could keep the shell, he tried to pry it out with a fork. Finally, Collin managed to get the snail's body out of the shell with a bamboo skewer. Lucky me. The thing looked like a GIANT grey booger. I did NOT want to eat. I suddenly knew exactly how the kids feel when I want them to eat something that looks gross (like eggplant for instance). I speared it with my fork and kept trying to bring it near my mouth, but there seemed to be some sort of forcefield between my lips and the fork. I set it down on my plate and then Collin casually mentioned that I should eat it to set a good example in front of the kids about not being picky. It's true, I had talked the talk so many times . . . . could I walk the walk? I kept looking at the snail. It was curled up (probably in agony as they steamed it in a pot) and I could see the little feelers poking out a little. It also smelled a little like a dirty washrag. All eyes were on me. I could see the wheels turning in the kids' heads. I knew that if I didn't eat that unappetizing little morsel that the kids would bring it up the next time I wanted them to try something new. I closed my eyes, popped it in my mouth, chewed it twice and swallowed it. Hooray, I did it! It didn't taste exactly bad, but as Emma always says, "I wouldn't eat a whole plate of them."
Collin and I also went there tonight with Ana Maria and Justo Orozco. I have eaten at their house so many times and we hadn't had them over to dinner yet because I'm kind of intimidated by Ana Maria's cooking. Latinos are habitually late, it's part of their culture. I know this and yet I am always frustrated they show up 1/2 an hour late (even when I know that is what is going to happen). Collin and I are always punctual to a fault, even when we know that the other people will most likely be late. (You'd think we would have learned by now.) So we sat at the table wanting to load up at the buffet, but waiting for our friends. Collin decided to fill up one plate for us to share and eat the food and bus the evidence before they showed up. Right as he got to the buffet, they showed up. Embarrassing! If he had waited literally 2 more minutes then he wouldn't have been caught red handed at the buffet, loaded plate in hand.
Justo went to college in Japan. He told us a funny story about how all the Filipinas in the dorms thought he was Filipino and would call him on the phone and speak to him in Tagalog. He would speak to them in Spanish because he, of course, didn't speak Tagalog being Mexican. The Filipinas, who were always inviting him to parties, thought that he was being a snob since the upper class people in the Philippines speak Spanish as a way of putting themselves above the common folk. To me, Justo doesn't look Filipino at all. He looks like a really tall Latino. In the Philippines he'd be a giant as he is taller than Collin.
There is a special dog (I think it is a Mexican hairless) in Colima, Mexico where Ana Maria and Justo are from. In Colima, they bury the dead with their dogs and if the dog isn't dead yet, they kill it in order to bury it with the dead. They believe that the dog will serve as the dead person's guide to heaven.
They also told us about an American car they had that wouldn't start. They had to send away for the part and wait for it. During that time, Ana Maria figured out that they could start the car using a screwdriver. Ana Maria called it a "Mexicanada." I think that means making something work through unorthodox and comical means. Kind of like when you have to use pliers to turn on the TV because the knob broke off.
When we were done eating, Ana Maria asked the waiter to take out picture. He kept pressing the button only halfway down to focus, but not all the way to take the picture. We kept trying to tell him to push the button all the way down, but he though we wanted pictures taken from all different angles so he kept moving around the table until he was behind Collin and I so we had our necks twisted around like the little girl in Poltergeist. We were cracking up, obviously there was a bit of a language barrier as the waiter was Asian and Spanish was definitely his second language.
I love hanging out with Justo and Ana Maria. I hope we keep in touch with them. It would be really fun to visit and have them visit us. I wish Ana Maria's cooking magic would rub off on me. I would like to make lentils that don't taste like dirt.
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