Main Street

On a recent road trip The Husband decided he wanted some Chinese food.  Now, in all my days of travelling – including the times with my parents, what I know to be true as the sky is blue when the sun shines is that in every town and hickville there is a Main Street.  And on this Main Street you will find a place that says Chinese Western Canadian Food.  And 9 times out of 10, when you go inside you will find a fish tank with a gold fish or plastic flowers or paintings depicting waterfalls or lanterns with red tassels or a combination of such treasure. If you are truly lucky – you will also find the paper placemats with Chinese Zodiacs.  I’m a rooster.  I verify this every time.

So, we are in a medium sized town and we enter the doors of the Chinese Western Canadian Food establishment.  My radar was on high alert because we had to enter via 2 doors which contained no windows; perhaps an airlock of sorts. The first door was painted bright blue, the second pink.  Inside we decide on the lunch buffet.  It is 2PM.   We are seated near to the buffet and before we can even sit down, the resident local has literally ran to the buffet to scoop up treasures.  That sort of spirited hoarding raised our hopes that the airlock was not a bad omen.

At first pass of the buffet, The Husband returned with a plate of 4 pieces of deep fried shriveled up things. I have yet to go up as I am stunned into silence and amazement by the decor. After we stop laughing at his plate of crap, we hear the shouts of kitchen folks and then the buffet begins to have fresh food.  The fresh stuff was ok.  But let’s be serious.  The only things  in Chinese Western Canadian Food places you are truly safe with is fried rice, fresh chow mien noodles, fresh mixed vegetables and chicken balls.  That’s it.  Also up for the offering were 4 colours of gelatin and 3 colours of ice cream, all in pre-portioned  parfait glasses.  The ice cream was housed in a new looking chest freezer with the glass sliding top.  Jello on the counter in 8 neat rows. I always wonder who cuts the jello into cubes.  

Let’s talk about the décor.  The pink from the airlock door carried forward as an accent colour, everywhere.  The wire tracks of the drop ceiling were painted pink as were the air registers. The 80's track lighting had a not-so clever disguise of plastic flowers and vines. There was a large brick fireplace which was not in use.  The opening had a hand created zodiac diagram and the mantel housed a giant waterfall picture.  A precious print embossed with metalic paint and a rounded edge gold frame.  Other such pictures were on the walls, too.  I didn't look at the floor but I know it was a cloth-like substance.  My best instinct says it was 70's fuzz carpet.

The mantel. I was nervous to sneak the photo. If you look hard you can see the pink drop ceiling track.

The people were friendly and polite. When they asked about the food we mustered up the word 'fine'. The fresh stuff was fine. We never did figure out what the 4 pieces of deep fried shriveled up stuff was. Come to think of it, I never saw a fish tank either. Is this a coincidence? I think not.