It’s our last full day in Taiwan and Irene and the kids are visiting with friends. I took the opportunity to go walking and catching up on writing blog posts, which are now dangerously backed up.
First order of business was a trip to MOS Burger for lunch.
Ordering went smoothly and I was quite pleased with myself. The place was a bit crowded, and as I was by myself, at sat at the counter staring out into the street. My burger arrived minus my french fries. (I believe I’ve mentioned before, MOS always cooks you fries after you order them, so they always take a while.)
It took an unusually long time for my fries to arrive, although I’m not sure what the disconnect was. I had finished my burger before there was any activity on the fries front. First, a girl came in and (as it was crowded) sat down next to me. They give you little numbers to sit on the table. I was 85, the girl who came and sat next to me was (coincidentally) #58. She hadn’t been sitting there long when the MOS employee arrived with a large order of fries and asked her (this much I understand) “You have a large order of fries?â€
She indicated in the negative. The employee looked perplexed. The phrase “I’m supposed to have a large order of fries and it’s been a long time, perhaps you’ve confused her ’58’ with my ’85’ and those are mine? Especially since only waiguoren or large families ever order large fries.†was far beyond my abilities to say in Chinese, and even a simple “I should have fries†stumped me because I’ve never studied the concept of “should†in the language.
I tried to indicate that I might be the owner of the fries, but he looked at his sheet, looked at my number and left. he went from table to table, asking if anyone had a large order of fries. He went upstairs for the tables up there. He came back a few minutes later, still carrying the fries. He took them back behind the counter and threw them away.
I don’t know why I bother with the large order of fries. They may be fresh, but the have no salt on them, which doesn’t make for very good-tasting fries.
Nonetheless, I’d paid for them and positive that those had been my fries, I was formulating how I was going to express that. I got out my receipt and checked it and was preparing to go to the manager, (who had taken my order in the first place) when I heard the employees ask him about the fries. he immediately responded, “They’re for the waiguoren.â€
So, they cooked me another batch of fries.
That’s not what this story is about.
It was hot, I had nothing better to do, and all I had left were my fries, so I was eating them slowly, daydreaming, when I noticed a faint glimmer – a shine like a flash in a mirror on a sunny day. It came from my finger. I looked closely, and there, like a tiny crystal dream was a single grain of salt.
I couldn’t believe it. It must have gotten there from the fries. I set about inspecting each and every one. Each fry had exactly 1 to 3 grains of salt. I could only imagine them being placed there, one-by-one, by some amazingly intricate Japanese machine designed just for that purpose.
As I counted each grain of salt, I removed it from the fry. (1 to 3 grains of salt doesn’t alter the flavor of the fry enough to bother with.) I placed each grain in a little spot on the corner of my tray.
When I reached the last fry, I had enough collected to rub the fry in the salt and it tasted delicious!